LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



INTO HIS MARVELLOUS 
LIGHT 



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BY 




CHARLES CUTHBERT HALL, D. D. 

MINISTER OF THE FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH 
OF BROOKLYN, N. Y. 




THE LIBRARY 
OF CONGREii 

WASHINGTON 



Copyright, 1891, 
By CHARLES CUTHBERT HALL. 



All rights reserved. 



The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A. 
Electrotyped and Printed by H. 0. Houghton & Company. 



TO 

THE MEMBERS OP MY CONGREGATION, 
IN THE FIFTEENTH TEAR 
OF OUR FELLOWSHIP IN 
THE GOSPEL 
OF JESUS CHRIST. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER PAGE 

I. Into His Marvellous Light 1 

II. Christ the Pillar of Light 19 

III. The Limitations of Law ....... 35 

IV. The Joys that are purchased by Sorrow 53 
V. The Element of Silence in Personal Re- 
ligion 71 

VI. The Ministry of Changes ...... 89 

VII. The Embrace of God ........ 105 



VIII. The Perspective of Eight Living . . . 123 
IX. The Benediction of the Risen Lord . . 141 
X.*The Unforgotten Labourers ..... 159 



XI. The Gift of Adversity ....... 177 

XII. The Splendid Ideal ......... 195 

XIII. The Mountain-Climb of Life 213 

XIV. Christ's Knowledge of our Sincerity . . 231 
XV. The Retrospect of Trial ...... 247 

XVI. The Faithful Companion ....... 265 

XVII. Forbearance ........... 283 

XVIII. The Recognition of Departed Greatness 301 
XIX. The Glory of Young Men ...... 317 

XX. The Interpreter .......... 337 



I. 

INTO HIS MARVELLOUS LIGHT. 



I. 



INTO HIS MARVELLOUS LIGHT. 

" Into His marvellous light." — 1 Peter ii. 9. 

He who would attain great things must first 
believe great things. "To him that hath shall 
be given, and he shall have more abundantly." 
Great lives can be traced back to great aspira- 
tions. Ignoble and barren ideas of life do not 
produce rich and fruitful lives. Men do not 
gather grapes from thorns nor figs from this- 
tles. Those who in any calling accomplish the 
higher possibilities of that calling are those 
who from the first have realized that those 
higher possibilities exist. The water of the 
stagnant pool has no energy to rise. The 
stream that comes bounding from the mountain 
has in itself power to bound heavenward again 
in the fountain. Mountains and fountains are 
essentially related. High springs are the birth- 
places of vigorous powers. In all legitimate 
callings he who succeeds is he who has had 
high conceptions of success. In the Chris- 
tian calling this is true. The great Christian 



4 INTO HIS MARVELLOUS LIGHT. 



lives have felt from the beginning that Chris- 
tian life is great ; that the light into which 
the Lord calls us is no " common light of clay/' 
but, indeed, " His marvellous light." 

I would speak to you of some glorious pos- 
sibilities of Christian experience. "Into His 
marvellous light." By each of the three chief 
apostles, John, Paul, and Peter, the splendid 
possibilities of Christian experience were fully 
realized. Each has described, by a character- 
istic title, Christian experience as it looked to 
him. John calls it " the everlasting life ; " 1 
Paul calls it " the glorious liberty ; " 2 Peter 
calls it " the marvellous light." 3 We are not 
surprised to find these men becoming great 
Christians, when their views of Christian expe- 
rience were so high and wide and great. They 
saw the greatness of their calling, — 

" And by the vision splendid 
(Were) on (their) way attended." 

They tried to live out toward the measure of 
life's possibilities. In this they were not alone. 
Many have done the same, many are now do- 
ing the same, — believing great things and al- 
ways living toward great things. To us the 

1 St. John iii. 16, 36 ; iv. 14 j v. 24 ; vi. 27, 40, 47. 

2 Rom. viii. 21. 

3 1 Pet. ii. 9. 



INTO HIS MARVELLOUS LIGHT. 5 



Christian life has not grown dull, formal, con- 
ventional. It has grown newer and greater ; in 
spite of all the many things in our common 
existence to hold one back, and keep one down, 
and beat out one's courage, and blunt one's 
spiritual perception, and " call the glory from 
the gray," the Christian calling is to-day God's 
marvellous light, more wonderful ever as the 
years pass, lighting up along the avenues of 
our experience glorious possibilities of know- 
ledge, of direction, of endowment, of support. 

Whoever is led to some particularly lumi- 
nous and happy word wherewith to describe a 
great experience earns the thanks of all whose 
privilege it may afterwards be to share that 
experience. He thus becomes a voice through 
which many souls utter themselves. We thank 
the Apostle Peter for his description of the 
Christian calling. That word, " into His mar- 
vellous light," tells magnificently what they 
find that calling to be who realize its possi- 
bilities. 

Truly God's marvellous light ! How mar- 
vellous this light in contrast with darkness ! 
— " Who hath called you out of darkness into 
His marvellous light." Contrast the situation, 
the moral atmosphere, the motives, the high 
and holy enjoyments, the goodly fellowships, 



6 INTO HIS MARVELLOUS LIGHT. 



the eternal consolations, the brilliant destiny of 
one who walks and lives in God's marvellous 
light, with the situation, the atmosphere, the 
motives, the pleasures, the fellowships, the des- 
tiny of one who walks in bestial, profligate, 
sensual darkness. 

How marvellous this light in contrast with 
the cold twilight of commonplace, conventional 
experience ! All the difference lies between 
them that lies between one of our most sullen, 
humid, relaxing, sunless winter days and one 
of our dry, clear, buoyant, glorified and glori- 
fying mornings of the early summer. They 
who have lived in the twilight of conventional 
religion, acknowledging the routine, but dis- 
cerning nothing in the substance of their faith 
to excite wonder or joy, cannot conceive the 
exhilarating happiness of the higher Christian 
experience when the liberty is really " glori- 
ous," and the sight is really " marvellous." 

But we wish to examine in detail some of 
those glorious possibilities of experience which 
may unfold themselves to one and another who 
are called of God's Spirit into His marvellous 
light. We wish to point out how in a glad 
and clear Christian experience we may be made 
far richer and completer than we were before. 
And I know of no better way to illustrate our 



INTO HIS MARVELLOUS LIGHT. 



7 



theme than to bring forward four types of ex- 
perience which were realized respectively by 
four great lives at moments when they stood 
peculiarly unshadowed in His marvellous light. 
Their experience, unique for each one of them 
in respect of the circumstances which attended 
it, furnishes, in respect of the power realized in 
it, incalculable encouragement and hope to the 
Christian of to-day who is walking in the light, 
as Christ is in the light. 

Peter, Paul, John, and Stephen, each in his 
own life, met an hour when he realized espe- 
cially the blessing of the marvellous light, and 
when his experience therein created a magnifi- 
cent suggestion and encouragement for us. 
Peter's supreme experience of the marvellous 
light was on the mountain of the Transfigu- 
ration ; 1 Paul's was on the road to Damascus ; 2 
John's was on the island of Patmos ; 3 Stephen's 
was in Jerusalem, at the hour of his intense 
trial and his victorious death. 4 Each, in his 
special hour of marvellous light, discovered a 
glorious possibility of Christian experience. 
When he stood unshadowed in the marvellous 
light, Peter realized the meaning of spiritual 
knowledge ; Paul realized the meaning of spir- 

1 St. Matt. xvii. 1-9. 2 Acts ix. 1-8. 

3 Rev. i. 10-20. 4 Acts vi. 8-vii. 60. 



8 



INTO HIS MARVELLOUS LIGHT. 



itual direction ; John realized the meaning of 
spiritual endowment; Stephen realized the 
meaning of spiritual support. 

Peter, with the sons of Zebedee, stands be- 
fore the Lord on the mountain top, called with- 
out warning into His marvellous light. An 
utterly new conception of the Person of Christ 
is imparted to him in that hour. He sees the 
fashion of his Master's countenance altered, His 
face shining as the sun, His raiment white and 
glistening ; and, under the power of emotions 
he can neither resist nor control, he realizes 
the meaning and the influence of spiritual 
knowledge. Behold the new conflict of feel- 
ings within him. He is afraid, sorely afraid, 
bowed to the earth beneath the overshadowing 
cloud, beneath the sense of unfathomable mys- 
tery, beneath the lustre of Omnipotent glory. 
Yet he is also at peace. With the greater mys- 
tery has come a new-born calmness, a sense of 
having been admitted to something greater 
than the world can give, and although he meas- 
ures not his words, nor hardly knows what they 
are, a new created consciousness of the blessed- 
ness of the new knowledge forces from him the 
confession, " It is good to be here." 

His experience is indeed unique in respect 
of the circumstances attending it ; but the sub- 



INTO HIS MARVELLOUS LIGHT. 9 



stance of Peter's experience in that marvellous 
light of the Transfiguration is essentially the 
experience of all of us who, called from dark- 
ness into light, are finding out the meaning and 
the influence of spiritual knowledge. How un- 
like is the actual influence upon us of spiritual 
knowledge to that which we once imagined it 
to be ! At the beginning of our Christian life 
we may have thought that the sense of mystery 
in connection with spiritual knowledge would 
pass away as we grew older, and that all things 
would become plain to us. At the beginning 
there were many things we could not under- 
stand ; but, we thought, " I shall understand 
all presently." How different has been the real 
influence of advancing spiritual knowledge ! If 
the Lord has called us, with advancing years, 
still farther into His marvellous light ; if, as 
He gave to Peter a new and more magnificent 
view of the Person of Christ and of the relation 
of the law and the prophets to Christ, He has 
also given us brighter and fuller vision of the 
Lord ; it is no more true of us than it was 
true of Peter, that the sense of mystery has 
passed away under the brighter vision of the 
truth. No ! with the marvellous light has 
come to us, as to him, the marvellous cloud, 
the more overwhelming sense of the infinite- 



10 



INTO HIS MARVELLOUS LIGHT. 



ness, the unfathoniableness of truth ; of the 
wonderf ulness of God ; of the tremendousness 
of the Divine purpose ; of the impossibility of 
comprehending all that God is, all that God 
means. Think not that spiritual knowledge 
means the clearing up of mystery; think not 
that spiritual knowledge means the reduction 
of the infinite truths of God to the easy and 
familiar terms of everyday life. Spiritual know- 
ledge means to be drawn step by step into the 
marvellous light of the glory of Christ, and in 
that light to realize the overshadowing cloud of 
the infiniteness of truth, till a man sinks down 
before his God and worships with holy fear. 
But in that fear is peace. Though each step 
forward in the marvellous light unfolds more 
that overwhelms us, more that makes us feel 
how little we are, and how vast Christ is, we 
know that here, and only here, have we found 
the peace the world can neither give nor take 
away. Though pressed to the earth by the 
weight of truth we cannot grasp, of knowledge 
we cannot attain, the consciousness of having 
reached a nobler life burns within us, and our 
soul testifies to Christ, " Lord, it is good to 
be here." 

" Into His marvellous light ! " Saul of Tarsus 
is pressing on his way, impassioned with a mis- 



INTO HIS MARVELLOUS LIGHT. 11 



taken purpose. Suddenly, without a warning, 
he is called out of darkness into Christ's mar- 
vellous light. As with a bolt from heaven, his 
old life, his old purpose, his old passion, are 
stricken to the earth. Out of the wreck rises 
a new man, blind to all behind him, blind to 
all around him, praying to Christ, " Show me 
what to do ! " It is his crisis, his second birth. 
Standing unshadowed in the marvellous light, 
Paul realizes, for the first time in his life, the 
meaning of spiritual direction. 

As of Peter, so of Paul, we may say that his 
experience is indeed unique, if we regard only 
the circumstances attending it ; but we know 
that his experience in its substance has been 
that of others whose lives are brought to a 
crisis in the marvellous light. Paul is by no 
means the only person who has realized this 
possibility of Christian experience, even the 
full meaning of spiritual direction ; who was 
going on in a certain course which he was sat- 
isfied to consider a right course ; who was yield- 
ing himself up to a purpose which he was satis- 
isfied to call a proper purpose ; who resented 
all criticisms upon his course and all interfer- 
ence with his purpose, till life was brought to 
a standstill by the call of God, speaking out of 
some providence or shining out of some truth. 



12 



INTO HIS MARVELLOUS LIGHT. 



Paul is not the only one who thought he had 
light, who persisted he had light, until the light 
came — God's marvellous light — to show him 
that he had been walking in darkness. Paul is 
not the only one who has been called into the 
marvellous light to realize there, suddenly and 
fully, the necessity of giving to life a total 
change of direction, and who has been con- 
scious that that new direction could not be 
worked out from the past, a continuance of old 
lines ; but must be a cutting and closing of old 
lines and a laying of new lines taken straight 
from Christ Himself. Who that has truly re- 
alized this experience of spiritual direction, — 
whether for him it has amounted to a total 
change of direction or has been but a bringing 
back to straightness of lines that had grown lax 
and crooked, — who, I say, has truly realized 
this experience of spiritual direction without 
looking back upon it in wonder and thankful- 
ness? How extraordinary is the revealing 
power of that marvellous light when it has 
flooded our path in some moral crisis of life! 
How it divides the false from the true, expos- 
ing, with its unpitying glory, the miserableness 
of our fallacies, the weakness of our self-delu- 
sions ; how it shows up the wrongness of 
wrong, till, though we have long trained our- 



INTO HIS MARVELLOUS LIGHT. 13 



selves to call evil good and darkness light, we 
can answer not a word ! Yes, the sudden ac- 
curacy of the long distorted conscience in dis- 
cerning between good and evil; the rapidity 
and exactness of self -conviction ; the dissolving 
and disappearance of familiar shadows of con- 
ventional untruths, — these are the wondrous 
phenomena which attend the inrush of the 
marvellous light. How extraordinary and how 
precious is the directing power of that marvel- 
lous light when it has completed in us its un- 
pitying work of self-revelation ! Like some 
tremendous search-light at the mast-head of a 
man-of-war, when it has turned its awful beam 
upon the past, disclosing the mistaken way, the 
unholy delusion, the vanity, the sin, it leaves 
that past in darkness, abandoned and forgiven ; 
it sweeps about and pours its glory into the 
future, streaming now upon a new path, a new 
way, a new direction, we had not seen, disclos- 
ing now new meanings, new motives, new de- 
lights we had not realized. 

" Into His marvellous light ! " The Lord's 
Day is spreading over Patmos its mantle of 
peace, where the lonely Apostle John waits the 
fulfilment of his exile. Perhaps, even to his 
obedient soul, the sense of the fruitlessness of 
his life is weighing upon him. Certainly, for 



14 INTO HIS MARVELLOUS LIGHT. 



his eagle spirit, it must have been a bitter thing 
to be caged on that silent rock, when his soul 
burned to speak a living word to a dying 
world. Believing, as I do, that the Revelation 
of John is earlier in time than the Gospel or 
the Epistles of John, you will see that as yet 
he had written nothing of that truth which 
none could write so well as he. On that still 
Sunday morning, as he walks and thinks, a 
Voice speaks behind him : " I am Alpha and 
Omega." He turns, and finds himself standing 
in the marvellous light. And out of the 
light comes the charge, the sevenfold charge : 
" Write, write, write the things which thou 
hast seen, and the things which are, and the 
things which shall be hereafter." Where is 
now the loneliness of the exile ? Where is now 
the sense of the f ruitlessness of lif e ? Gone, 
forever gone. For the apostle has received his 
message. In the marvellous light John has 
learned the meaning of spiritual endowment. 
Henceforth life can have for him no indefinite- 
ness, no scattering indirection. He has had 
his orders from his King. His life-work is laid 
upon him. 

Is he alone in this ? Is he realizing a possi- 
bility of spiritual experience which none of us 
may realize ? Yes, alone, if you look but on 



INTO HIS MARVELLOUS LIGHT. 15 

the circumstances amidst which he received his 
message ; alone, if you think but of the audi- 
ble and visible phenomena of that glorious 
hour, — the voice that mingled with the sound 
of thundering waves, the glittering girdle, the 
illustrious countenance " as the sun that shineth 
in its strength." 1 But not alone, if you think 
of the substance of his experience rather than 
of its form. He is but one of many whom 
God has called into His marvellous light, that 
He might give them a message, to write or 
to speak or to live, for His sake and for man's 
sake. He is but one of many who know what 
it is to have heard a Divine call summoning 
them to the consecration of life, for the utter- 
ance of the truth and love of Christ ; to utter 
that truth by a faithful, constant, self-denying 
service ; to utter it by a pure and gentle min- 
istry of influence, in their own homes, in their 
own social sphere, in the manifold labors of the 
church of Christ, Happy are they who can in 
any sense be conscious of having been called 
into the marvellous light of Christ, and of hav- 
ing there received a spiritual endowment, — a 
call, a charge, a message from Him Who has 
had prophets and apostles as His willing mes- 
sengers. Can you feel that Christ has given 

1 Rev. i. 13, 15, 16. 



16 INTO HIS MARVELLOUS LIGHT. 



you anything to do ? Can you feel that He 
has laid any charge upon your life? given 
you aught to tell or show, in speech or silence 
to your fellowmen ; aught to make plainer to 
the eyes that do not see His marvellous light ? 
Be thankful, for in this you are treading near 
to the very holiest ground man has ever been 
permitted to tread ! 

" Into His marvellous light ! " As one who 
stands tied to a stake, in the rising tide which 
must soon cover him, Stephen, the first of the 
deacons, stands in the rising tide of hatred 
and malignity which must soon sweep away his 
life. It is an awful hour, of fierce and unre- 
lenting strain ; immediate expectation of bod- 
ily pain, and of the mystery of death. With 
irrepressible curiosity the eyes of all the coun- 
cil are fastened on him to see if he will break 
or stand under the strain. " And looking stead- 
fastly on him they saw his face as it had been 
the face of an angel." Why does he not break 
under the supreme strain of his life? What 
is that light upon his face ? It is His marvel- 
lous light, the same that Peter had seen, and 
the same that John and Paul were yet to see. 
" They looked steadfastly on him." " But he, 
being full of the Holy Ghost, looked up stead- 
fastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, 



INTO HIS MARVELLOUS LIGHT. 17 



and Jesus standing on the right hand of God." 
In that marvellous light he realized, in the hour 
when he would most have desired to realize it, 
the full meaning of spiritual support. When 
the stones were raining upon him, he was pray- 
ing "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit." When the 
cries of madness were raised about him, he was 
interceding, " Lord, lay not this sin to their 
charge." When the climax of confusion was 
bursting over him, " he fell asleep." What was 
his secret ? What could raise him so far above 
his circumstances ? What could keep him in 
perfect peace through all that bitter storm ? It 
was that possibility of Christian experience 
which is within the reach of all who are standing 
in His marvellous light. Spiritual support : the 
grace that still keeps us from breaking, when 
the strain has reached the breaking-point ; the 
power that still renews trust and love and hope 
when untoward circumstances have hedged us 
in and bound us fast ; the love that shall still 
hold us fast with Everlasting Arms, till we fall 
into the blessed sleep, entering eternally into 
His marvellous light ! Amen. 



f 



II. 

CHRIST THE PILLAE OF LIGHT. 



t 



II. 



CHKIST THE PILLAK OF LIGHT. 

Preached on Easter Day, 1891. 

" I am the light of the world : he that followeth Me shall 
not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life." — John 
viii. 12. 

A light. A moving light. A man follow- 
ing a moving light. And so my theme, this 
Easter morning, is and must be " Christ the 
Pillar of Light." For this is what He means 
when He says : " I am the light of the world : 
he that followeth Me shall not walk in dark- 
ness, but shall have the light of life." It was 
the Feast of Tabernacles, commemorating the 
journey through the wilderness. In the court 
of the women were blazing the great candela- 
bra lighted in memory of the pillar of fire. 
Christ mounts the memory, and speaks from it 
as from a throne. " I am the light of the 
world : he that followeth Me shall not walk in 
darkness, but shall have the light of life." He 
loved to mount the greater memories of Israel, 
and to speak from them as from thrones, His 



22 



CHRIST THE PILLAR OF LIGHT. 



own kingship over the lives of men. Is it the 
hoary memory of Abraham, the father of the 
faithful ? Like a king He says : " Before 
Abraham was, I am." 1 Is it the memory of 
the manna in the desert ? Like a king He 
says : " Your fathers did eat manna in the wil- 
derness, and are dead. This is the bread which 
cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat 
thereof, and not die." 2 Is it the memory of 
the water pouring from the smitten rock ? Like 
a king He says : " If any man thirst, let him 
come unto Me, and drink." 3 This morning He 
speaks to us from the pillar of light. He 
mounts that memory, and utters Himself from 
it, as from a throne. " I am the light of the 
world : he that f olloweth Me shall not walk in 
darkness, but shall have the light of life." 

When, looking back to the desert of the 
exodus, we consider this memory, Israel's pil- 
lar of light, we find, on reflection, four reasons 
why, in the glorious field of resurrection truth, 
it becomes a worthy symbol of the risen Lord. 4 
First, there was light. Second, there was mov- 
ing light. Third, there was the lighting of 
the way. Fourth, there was the lighting of 
the follower. 



1 St. Jno. viii. 58. 
3 St. Jno. vii. 37. 



2 St. Jno. vi. 49, 50. 
4 Ex. xiii. 20-22. 



CHRIST THE PILLAR OF LIGHT. 



23 



First, there was light. Light in the pillar 
itself. It was not the glory of the sunset fall- 
ing on it, and painting it with transitory color ; 
it was not the glory of the moon, pouring over 
its surface a sheen as of burnished silver* The 
light was the immanent substance of the pillar ; 
the glory was an underived glory, proceeding 
from itself. Whilst the common light of day 
remained, the pillar was a pillar of cloud, the 
stately witness of its own continuance ; but 
when darkness overspread the wilderness, when 
landmarks vanished, and peril ambushed itself 
in shadow on every hand, then the heart of 
that cloudy shrine disclosed its interior and 
immanent glory, pouring light out upon the 
darkness. 

Second, there was moving light. Onward 
moved the pillar, telling them the wilderness 
was not their home. Onward, ever onward, 
from encampment to encampment, from stage 
to stage ; from palm-shadowed Elims of re- 
pose ; from sultry deserts of scarcity ; from 
hard-fought fields of battle, — still the light 
moved on. 

Third, there was the lighting of the way. 
It was a perpetual revelation. Hour by hour 
new features of the wilderness disclosed them- 
selves to the march of light. Paths before un- 



24 CHRIST THE PILLAR OF LIGHT. 



known were revealed beneath that searching 
glory. Precipices unsuspected were thrown 
out of shadow. Ambushes were unmasked, 
and safety travelled in the train of light. 

Fourth, there was the lighting of the fol- 
lower. The glory fell on every follower. They 
went through the desert not like prowling rob- 
bers, hating detection ; beams from the pillar of 
light flashed on the vestments of priests, on the 
spears of soldiers, on the trumpets of choirs, 
on the ea^er faces of men and women. Walk- 
ing in the light, they became an army of light. 
He only lost the light who ceased from follow- 
ing. 

Ask not, then, what Jesus meant when, stand- 
ing in the Temple court in the Feast of Taber- 
nacles commemorating that desert pilgrimage, 
He called Himself the light of the world. Ask 
not, then, what Jesus means when, meeting us 
who believe His resurrection and His risen 
life, He says to us, this Easter morning, to 
each man, each woman, each youth, who will 
receive His word : "I am the light of the 
world : he that f olloweth Me shall not walk in 
darkness, but shall have the licit of life." 

" I am the light of the world," — Christ the 
piUar of light. " He that f olloweth Me," — 
Christ the moving pillar of light. " He that 



CHRIST THE PILLAR OF LIGHT. 25 



followetli me shall not walk in darkness," — 
Christ the moving pillar of light, lighting up 
the way. " He that followetli Me shall have 
the light of life," — Christ the moving pillar 
of light, lighting the follower. 

I. " I am the light of the world," - — Christ 
the pillar of light. Christ is light, for Christ is 
God. God is light, and in Him is no darkness 
at all. Christ is God manifested. He is the 
effulgence of His glory. " He that hath seen 
Me hath seen the Father." 1 Christ is the light 
of the world. Coming into the world He has 
brought in Himself a light for every man. The 
Holy Spirit is the medium, through Whom, as 
through an atmosphere, the light is carried 
into the life of each soul. Whoever has the 
Holy Spirit dwelling in him sees the light by 
means of the Spirit. The Holy Spirit is not the 
light of the world ; even as the atmosphere 
which transmits the sunlight is not the sun- 
light, but is the medium through which we 
receive the sunlight. Christ says : 6 1 am 
the light of the world." Christ is not the 
reflection of a light, as sometimes the win- 
dows of a house blaze with the reflection of 
the sunset. He is the light. The pillar of 
light in the desert was not bright with the 

1 St. Jno. xiv. 9. 



26 



CHRIST THE PILLAR OF LIGHT. 



reflection of sunset, nor with the reflection of 
moonbeams. Its interior and immanent sub- 
stance was light. It was the underived source 
of light. It gave light where there was no 
light. So is Christ the pillar of light. Light 
is the immanent and underived substance of 
His being. It is impossible to walk in the un- 
shaded presence of the sun's rays and not be 
in the light. It is impossible to walk in the 
unshaded presence of Christ and not be in the 
light ; for He is the light ; therefore He says, 
with the positiveness of one who formulates an 
axiom : " He that folio weth Me shall not walk 
in darkness." This truth is the postulate of 
this Easter message. It is the truth assumed as 
the formation of further reasoning. Whoever 
grants this postulate, and so receives Christ as 
the underived and immanent light, is carried 
already to the conclusions which I have sug- 
gested. Whoever cannot grant this postulate, 
whoever is unable thus to receive Christ, not as 
a glorious reflection of some light exterior to 
Himself, but as in Himself and as of Himself 
light, is unable to accept the truths which rise 
from this foundation and pile themselves up be- 
fore our eyes as a pillar of light. I plead with 
every soul which, on this Easter morning, pants 
for a more abundant, richer life, to grant this 



CHRIST THE PILLAR OF LIGHT. 27 



postulate which Christ Himself pronounces, 
when He says : "I am the light of the world." 

II. " I am the light of the world : he that 
followeth Me/' — Christ, the moving pillar of 
light. The pillar of light is not anchored in 
the desert, to stand forever in one place, a 
wonder of the world, a spectacle to be mar- 
velled at by gaping crowds, or to be ignored 
by the absorbed and the indifferent. It has ap- 
peared for a purpose : to lead men on, shining 
upon their way, and shining upon themselves. 
Therefore it moves ; it leads ; it adapts itself 
to their necessity, which is the necessity of pro- 
gress. It goes before them that they may fol- 
low. It precedes them into all new condi- 
tions and new scenes, that it may disclose those 
conditions and illuminate those scenes. So is 
Christ the moving pillar of light. Whoever 
keeps with Him must keep moving. To walk 
in His light is to be a follower. Forward is 
His watchword, and is ours. To go to men 
and lead them on is still His work. To all 
among us, in whom is His Holy Spirit, reveal- 
ing the light, Christ is the moving pillar of 
light, the light that ever goes on — and on ; 
that says to us by its own gloriousness, "Fol- 
low Me." Christ is energy as well as light, 
— a light that moves as well as a light that 



28 CHRIST THE PILLAR OF LIGHT. 



sliines. " The dayspring from on high hath 
visited us, to give light to them that sit in 
darkness and in the shadow of death, and to 
guide our feet into the way of peace." 1 Be- 
hold with what energy the pillar of light 
moves when the stone is rolled away from the 
sepulchre, and the light becomes the light of 
the risen Lord. Behold how in the brief forty 
days between the Kesurrection and the As- 
cension He is placing Himself before men to 
lead them onward, to lead them upward. The 
angel in the sepulchre testifies to the women 
of the moving pillar of light, saying, " He 
goeth before you into Galilee : there shall ye 
see Him." 2 On the Emmaus road we see the 
moving pillar of light placing Himself in touch 
with those two sad lives, and shining upon 
their way till their own hearts burn with an- 
swering light. 3 On the Ascension morning: we 
see the moving pillar of light, leading them 
out as far as Bethany, 4 and then leading them 
up in heart and mind to that life more mag- 
nificent, — 

" Where the glory brightly dwelleth, 
And the new song sweetly swelleth, 
And the discord never conies." 

And to-day, so far as we realize the concep- 

1 St. Lk. i. 78, 79. 2 St. Mk. xvi. 7. 

3 St. Lk. xxiv. 32. 4 St. Lk. xxiv. 50. 



CHRIST THE PILLAR OF LIGHT. 



29 



tion of a risen Lord, Christ becomes to the 
individual the moving pillar of light ; not a 
glorious memory, anchored in the desert of the 
past, not a distant splendor withdrawn by His 
Ascension to some inconceivable geographical 
remoteness ; but a pillar of light, discerned not 
now with our fleshly eyes, as Peter and John 
discerned Him, but discerned by the revealings 
of the Holy Spirit, — a pillar of light Who is 
with us all the days, and Who still will lead us 
on, 

" O'er moor and fen, o'er crag and torrent, till 
The night is gone." 

This is the presence of Christ, the moving pil- 
lar of light, Who has come to each of us, as 
He came to those two lives on the Emmaus 
road, to put Himself in touch with our expe- 
riences, and continually to lighten our dark- 
ness. If changes come to us, He has always 
anticipated those changes, and moved into re- 
lation with the new conditions. If our path 
suddenly and sharply turns to adversity, the 
pillar of light has moved into the valley be- 
fore us ; and if, in seasons of awful pining 
and repining, we seem driven through a dark, 
tempestuous sea, even there the moving light 
goes onward, and if we follow it, we reach the 
shore of peace again. 



30 CHRIST THE PILLAR OF LIGHT. 



III. " I am the light of the world : he that 
followetk Me shall not walk in darkness/' — 
Christ, the moving pillar of light, lighting up 
the way. " Thou wilt shew me the path of 
life." 1 It is nightfall in the wilderness, and 
every moment new veils of darkness are wound 
about the landscape. No natural light of sun 
or moon remains. Yet Israel must go forward ; 
the forced march in the desert cannot be post- 
poned ; this is not their rest. Then through 
the gathering night appears that opalescent 
pillar, pouring forth the floods of its interior 
and immanent glory. And lo ! the way ap- 
pears ; the darkness is smitten like the sea, and 
through the midst of gloom the moving pillar 
cuts a track of glory. Precipice, torrent, am- 
buscade, the fatal snares of darkness are dis- 
armed, and by a way that they knew not Israel 
is led through the night. " I am the light of 
the world : he that f olloweth Me shall not walk 
in darkness." The moving pillar lights up the 
way for him who follows it. Life is a forced 
march through the desert, and has its hours of 
mingled necessity and fear, when natural light 
fails us at every step, when the gathering veils 
of uncertainty obscure the path more and more 
till it becomes impenetrable, yet when we know 

1 Ps. xvi. 11. 



CHRIST THE PILLAR OF LIGHT. 



31 



we must go on. We cannot encamp at twilight 
and wait till dawn. This is not our rest. Go 
on we must. Yet how to go, when all is dark 
before one ; when no sunny ray of certainty 
falls upon the path ; when no pale moonbeam 
of probability struggles through the shade ; 
when the experience is unique and the path 
is untrodden ! It is then the pillar of light be- 
gins to shine, and slowly to move onward ; it is 
then the opalescent glory begins to pour into 
the night, lighting the way up, inch by inch, 
foot by foot, yard by yard. " He that f ollow- 
eth Me shall not walk in darkness." Onward 
moves the pillar, but only he who follows is 
saved from the darkness. There is a way out 
of every wilderness, — and there is a pillar of 
light to show the way out. But the condition 
of guidance is to keep in the presence of Christ. 
And to keep in the light is to keep moving, for 
the light moves. " He that followeth me shall 
not walk in darkness." To cease from follow- 
ing is to be left in the dark. " For with Thee 
is the fountain of life : in Thy light shall we 
see light." 1 Jesus lives ! Jesus leads ! Jesus 
lights ! To follow is to see ! The pillar moves. 
Passions, habits, perversities of judgment, the 

spirit of delay, fear, fond clinging sins, — these 

« 

1 Ps. xxx vi. 9. 



32 



CHRIST THE PILLAR OF LIGHT. 



hold us back. Meanwhile the pillar moves. 
There is light, but light is going. Who will 
go, too ? Who will cry this Easter morning, 
" Lord, we have left all and have followed 
thee ? " 1 "If any man serve Me, let him fol- 
low Me ; and w r here I am, there shall also My 
servant be/' 2 

IV. "I am the light of the world : he that 
followeth Me shall have the light of life," — 
Christ, the moving pillar of light, lighting up 
the follower. It is midnight in the desert ; 
rock ridges and sands are wrapped in common 
gloom ; wild beasts, leaving their caves, prowl 
through the waste ; robbers crouch secure, and 
watch more fiercely than beasts for their prey. 
Darkness everywhere and on all faces, save 
where the people of God are following the pil- 
lar of light. The light lights up the follow- 
ers ; on the vestments of priests, on the spears 
of soldiers, on the trumpets of choirs, on the 
faces of men and women, the light is falling, 
creating an army of light. So also Christ, the 
moving pillar of light, promises to them that 
follow Him another and a greater thing than 
guidance, — not only " they shall not walk in 
darkness," but this also, " they shall have the 
light of life." It is much to be guided by 

1 St. Mk.'x. 28. 2 St. Jno. xii. 26. 



CHRIST THE PILLAR OF LIGHT. 



33 



light ; it is greater to be glorified by light. It 
is much to see the way by the light that shines 
from Him ; it is greater when the light kindles 
our own eyes till they, too, shine with the light 
that is in His. He who follows the light of 
the world becomes a light of the world. He 
who said, " I am the light of the world," said 
also, " Ye are the light of the world." 1 For 
the pillar of light, which lights up the way for 
the follower, lights up also the follower in the 
way. What is likeness to Christ? Likeness 
to Christ is when the light from the moving 
pillar falls on the life following close behind it, 
till the following life becomes also in its way a 
moving pillar of light. " But we all, with un- 
veiled face reflecting as a mirror the glory of 
the Lord, are transformed into the same image 
from glory to glory." 2 

" He shall have the light of life." Light is 
an attribute of our normal life, for God is light. 
Sin, sorrow, over-pressure, selfishness, — these 
are the great enemies of light, and so the en- 
emies of a perfect life. Christ sorrows over 
our lost attributes. He has come to give them 
back. " I am come that they might have 
life, and that they might have it more abun- 
dantly." 3 To give us back those lost attributes 

1 St. Matt. v. 14. 2 2 Cor. iii, 18, K. V. 

3 St. Jno. x. 10. 



34 CHRIST THE PILLAR OF LIGHT. 



of life, He loses His own life on the cross, and 
takes it up afresh on Easter morning. The 
conditions for the restoration of our lost attri- 
butes are now all supplied, save one, and that 
is left with us to supply : " He that folio we th 
Me shall have the light of life." To keep in 
the presence of the risen Lord ; to follow the 
moving pillar ; to lay aside every weight and 
the sin which doth so easily beset us, to run 
with patience the race set before us, " looking 
off unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our 
faith," 1 that is the restoration of the attribute 
of light. The glory of pureness, the glory of 
patience, the glory of grand endeavor, the glory 
of fellowship with God, are the light that is in 
Him ; if we follow, it will fall on us, and as He 
is, so shall we be in this world. Amen. 

1 Heb. xii. 2 ; Gr. aipopwvTes. 



in. 

THE LIMITATIONS OF LAW. 



III. 



THE LIMITATIONS OF LAW. 

" What the law could not do." — Romans viii. 3. 

Human law is the most majestic structure 
man has reared, the most tremendous instru- 
ment man has wielded. " The law/' said Plu- 
tarch, " is queen of the gods and men." " Laws/' 
said Montesquieu, "in their most general sig- 
nification, are the necessary relations resulting 
from the nature of things." 1 The impressive- 
ness of human law becomes particularly obvious 
when we station ourselves at certain stand- 
points from which to regard this great fabric. 
For example : Consider human law in respect 
of its foundation in the moral self-conscious- 
ness of man. The essential principles of law 
are not made by man. They are discovered by 
man as existing within himself. In his own 
moral self -consciousness he finds the foundations 
of law in the primary intuition of right. He 
has not laid those foundations : they are laid 
1 Spirit of Laws, Bk. I. Cap. I. 



38 



THE LIMITATIONS OF LAW. 



within him by his Creator. While man is man, 
law is law in essence. 

Consider human law in respect of its ac- 
cord with ethical perfection. The theory of 
law is the theory of absolute righteousness. 
The ideal of law is an ideal right : that man 
shall deal justly with his fellow-man ; that 
none shall go beyond and defraud his brother 
in any matter ; that every individual shall 
enjoy the recognition, or the protection, or the 
vindication of his rights ; that society shall be 
framed in the beauty of a faultless order and 
clasped in the bond of peace. 

Consider human law in respect of its pas- 
sionless review of evidence. Law is passion- 
less. It neither loves, pities, nor hates. It 
recognizes precedent, but not prejudice. In 
theory, it is no man's friend and no man's 
enemy. It sifts out opinions from evidence, 
that it may hold and weigh evidence alone. 
It is cold, hard, and white as the marble of 
Pentelicus. 

Consider human law in respect of its penal 
momentum. Was it ever your fortune to stand 
on the deck of some smaller craft and watch 
the Umbria or the Lahn come up the Nar- 
rows from the sea ; to note that awful silence 
of its momentum as it devours space? Did 



THE LIMITATIONS OF LAW. 



39 



the momentum of that giant hull ever suggest 
itself to you as the product of a force within 
itself, yet not of itself, — a force of which the 
hull is the essential vehicle and expression? 
Such is the penal momentum of human law. 
A force within itself, yet not of itself. The 
limitless imperative of moral obligation confers 
on law a momentum which compels it to exe- 
cute its own penalties. It has no choice but to 
protect the innocent, no choice but to punish 
the guilty. 

Such, then, is the impressiveness of human 
law. Considered in respect of its foundation in 
the moral self-consciousness of man ; or of its 
accord with ethical perfection ; or of its passion- 
less review of evidence ; or of its penal momen- 
tum, it indeed may be called the most majestic 
structure man has reared, the most tremendous 
instrument man has wielded. Filled with these 
thoughts, it strikes us at first with surprise to 
behold that there are things which the law can- 
not do. Yet on reflection we see that there is a 
point beyond which this great instrument of 
human law is powerless. 

Human law cannot forgive sin. A person 
may forgive another, but law cannot forgive. 
Horace Bushnell truly says of this, " The law, 
being impersonal, cannot of course forgive any- 



40 



THE LIMITATIONS OF LAW. 



thing itself ; or in any way compound its own 
wrong." 1 There is a pardoning power, but 
it is lodged with the executive government 
rather than with the judiciary. The judge 
who should attempt to arrest the penal mo- 
mentum of law would be unseated from the 
bench. 

Human law cannot abolish crime. That the 
law by its terrors diminishes the sum of crime 
is not to be doubted. But that it has no 
power to abolish crime is demonstrated by the 
daily history of society, and by the constant 
supply of inmates for our penal institutions. 

Human law cannot regenerate the con- 
science or renew the affections. It may by its 
severity appeal to the sense of fear. It may by 
its dignity appeal to the sense of right. But 
its appeal is ever that of an external instru- 
ment, not that of an inward^ regenerating 
power. We have no means of estimating the 
vast extent to which law restrains evil conduct ; 
but we have no evidence that law has ever yet 
regenerated a motive, rehabilitated a corrupt 
conscience, or recreated in holiness an impure 
affection. These things, the forgiveness of 
sin, the abolition of crime, the regeneration of 
conscience, are among the things which ( not- 
1 Forgiveness and Law, p. 93. 



THE LIMITATIONS OF LAW. 



41 



withstanding the impressiveness of human law ) 
"the law could not do." 

But when we lift our eyes thoughtfully and 
reverently from human law to Divine law, to 
the moral law of God, we find that neither can 
the Divine law do these things, although in its 
majesty it transcends all human law. " What 
the law could not do " is spoken, in our text, 
of the supreme conception of all law, even of 
the perfect moral law of God for the guidance 
of man. No human language can describe the 
majesty of God's moral law. All that we dis- 
cern of solemn splendor in human law is but a 
reflection of the same attributes perfectly and 
primarily existent in Divine law. Divine law 
is founded in the Divine self-consciousness. 
What God has said to us in the command- 
ments "Thou shalt" and « Thou shalt not " 
is not a list of technical regulations adopted by 
Him to show His power over us. These are 
the expression of moral necessities founded in 
His own being and revealed to His own self- 
consciousness. Rightness and wrongness are 
not rightness and wrongness merely because 
God says they are ; they are ( as Montesquieu 
says of human law ) " necessary relations 
arising out of the nature of things." They 
inhere in the essence of God ; and until God 



42 



THE LIMITATIONS OF LAW. 



is destroyed, they cannot be destroyed. Says 
Faber in his noble hymn, " Right is right, 
since God is God." 

Divine law represents moral perfection. Sup- 
pose God's will were done on earth as it is 
done in heaven. What an earth this would 
be ! Moral perfection would rest like a diadem 
on every brow. Mercy and truth would meet 
together in every transaction of man with man. 
Righteousness and peace would kiss each other 
in every outgoing of man's consciousness to- 
ward God. The Divine law would be the rule 
of a sinless universe wherein every creature 
would fulfil a perfect destiny of usefulness, 
felicity, and holiness. 

The Divine law is a passionless review of evi- 
dence. Shall not the Judge of all the earth do 
right ? Shall not those clear, all-seeing Eyes 
read us as we are ? Shall not that perfect 
Mind deal with us in equity ? No passion, 
no resentment, no prejudice shall warp the law 
of Him who is all truth and all knowledge. 

"All shadows from the truth will fall 
And falsehood die, in sight of Thee. 
Oh, quickly come, for doubt and fear 
Like clouds dissolve when Thou art near." 1 

The Divine law carries in itself penal mo- 

2 The Rev. Lawrence Tuttiett. 



THE LIMITATIONS OF LAW. 



43 



mentum. Until God denies Himself, until 
God destroys that eternal imperative of moral 
obligation which is the substance of His own 
being, He cannot arrest the penal momentum 
of the moral law. It is the vehicle and expres- 
sion of His own life. Were that force of law 
to be arrested, were that Divine imperative of 
moral obligation to be suspended, the moral 
universe drops with a crash ; there is nothing 
left that is absolutely and objectively right ; 
there is no right, there is no wrong, higher 
than public opinion ; God has abdicated in 
favor of the moral anarchists. 

And yet, we are told to-day, even of this 
Divine law, which is founded in the Divine self- 
consciousness, which represents moral perfec- 
tion, which is a passionless review of evidence, 
which carries in itself penal momentum, — of 
this we are told that it has its limitation, that 
there is that which the "law could not do." 

The Divine law cannot forgive sin. Having 
in itself that eternal imperative of moral obli- 
gation which proceeds forth from the eternal 
right in God's life, law can simply recognize 
facts and act upon them. It cannot reverse 
facts. On the one hand it recognizes obedience ; 
on the other hand it recognizes disobedience. 
It cannot punish obedience without ceasing to 



44 



THE LIMIT A TIONS OF LA W. 



be law ; it cannot protect or remit or forgive 
disobedience without ceasing to be law. 

The Divine law cannot abolish sin. For 
thousands of years man has known the law, 
yet look at man to-day. Over every metropo- 
lis of the world is the Divine edict, " Thou 
shalt not." Yet look at New York, and Lon- 
don, and Paris to-day. Over your life and 
mine, since we were children, have sounded like 
tremendous organ tones the commandments of 
God. Yet look at our conduct and at our secret 
thoughts, and confess what they have been. 

The Divine law cannot regenerate the con- 
science and the affections. It is as pure and holy 
for the unconverted man as for the converted 
man, yet it does not make the unconverted 
man sorrow for his sin, or aspire for fellowship 
with God. It speaks to him in the language 
of moral perfection ; he hears it with his out- 
ward ears, but in secret he is unchanged, sat- 
isfied with his sins, lusting after further enjoy- 
ment of them. 

In view of these obvious limitations of law, 
of whose existence we are convinced by looking 
at our own hearts and at the world around us, 
it is necessary for a thoughtful being to do one 
of two things : to become a pessimist or to 
become a Christian. 



THE LIMITATIONS OF LAW. 



45 



A pessimist is one who holds that this world 
is the worst possible of worlds ; that the des- 
tiny of man is the saddest of all possible des- 
tinies ; that the terribleness of life is too great 
to be resisted. And indeed, if there be no re- 
deeming offset to the limitations of law, the 
pessimist is right, and his sorrow is creditable to 
himself. For is not life too terrible to be de- 
scribed, is not its misery too vast to be uttered, 
if we and all men are living out our brief day, 
and rushing on to eternal night under a law 
which of necessity condemns us, yet has no 
power to forgive us, or to abolish our sin, or to 
regenerate us ? If one is not a Christian, it is 
better, it is more honorable, it is less base to 
be a pessimist, than to be one of those who, in 
such a world, take their ease in a life of sin. 
Surely they are most like the beasts that 
perish who can live in pleasure without a faith 
which suggests some offset to the limitations 
of a law that condemns humanity, but cannot 
redeem it. I can conceive nothing more ter- 
rible than the situation suggested by those 
simple words of St. Paul: "What the law could 
not do." It can do so much to condemn 
humanity. It can do nothing to relieve 
humanity. It is like a surgeon who lays open 
the very vitals of his patient, and then with- 



46 



THE LIMITATIONS OF LAW. 



draws, saying, " I leave you where you are ; 
I can do nothing to relieve your agony." No 
wonder those who believe this are pessimists. 
Their pessimism is honorable to them. 

But I refuse to be a pessimist. There is that 
in me, not myself, which whispers to me of a 
nobler destiny for myself and for my fellow- 
beings. The same power that has long con- 
vinced me of the fact of a Divine law, of the 
fact that God expresses Himself to me through 
those dicta of righteousness which are a part of 
His own substance, — that power is constantly 
telling me that God has come in ( at the point 
where law fails through limitation) to offset 
the limitation of law by a new work, even the 
work of grace. Therefore I am not a pessi- 
mist, and because I am not a pessimist, I am a 
Christian. And my Christianity expresses it- 
self in the answers to these two questions : 
What causes the Divine law to be limited? 
What are God's offsets to that limitation ? 

What causes the Divine law to be limited ? 
Why are there things that " the law could not 
do " ? The great answer to this question is found 
by reading on through the few words that fol- 
low our text: "What the law could not do, 
in that it was weak through the flesh." The 
flesh is the cause of the limitation, and in that 



THE LIMITATIONS OF LAW. 



47 



sense the weakening, of God's law, — the sin- 
ful nature of man. If man were holy, as God 
is, and as God made man to be, he would need 
nothing more than the Divine law to keep 
him in righteousness, and so in blessedness for- 
ever. Every commandment of that law, pro- 
ceeding out of the holy depths of the nature 
of God, would be perfectly appreciated and 
completely received in the heart of man, and as 
the clear, still water of the lake fully reflects 
the cloud-forms in the sky, the calm and clear 
moral nature of man would completely answer 
to the will of God. God would speak, and 
man's answer would be the echo of God's 
voice. God would command, and man's joy 
would be to do His commandments. And thus 
the sinless soul would find every need of its 
nature met and satisfied in the Divine law. It 
would need nothing but law for its guidance 
and for its bliss. But we are not like the calm, 
clear lake reflecting the sky ; we are like the 
troubled, turbid sea when it cannot rest. The 
flesh, the flesh is our natural life : the things of 
the flesh, the laws of the flesh, the lusts of the 
flesh. This is sin in the nature of man, cor- 
rupting the conscience ; demeaning the affec- 
tions ; nourishing selfishness ; catering to pride ; 
seducing the will. This is " the flesh," and we 



48 THE LIMITATIONS OF LAW. 



that are in the flesh cannot please God ; we are 
not anxious to please God ; we do wish to please 
ourselves. What can the Divine law, great as it 
is, do for us ? It cannot forgive us ; it cannot 
regenerate us ; it does not appeal to us ; it can 
only condemn us. It is " weak," not through 
any weakness in God, not through any weakness 
in law ; it is weak " through the flesh," through 
the fallen and perverse nature of those over 
whom it seeks to extend its sway. If I go to 
an asylum for the insane, and preach there the 
gospel, the gospel is " weak," not through any 
weakness in itself, not, it may be, through any 
special weakness in my presentation of it ; it is 
weak through the diseased condition of those 
to whom it is preached. 

Having found, then, the cause of the limita- 
tion of the Divine law to be not in God, but 
in the sinfulness of the nature of man, the 
greatest of all questions then arises : How has 
God offset that limitation of which man him- 
self is the cause? Is there anybody or any- 
thing able to do " what the law could not 
do " ? The answer to that question makes me 
a Christian, not as a matter of arbitrary choice, 
but under the logic of necessity. After exam- 
ining and sifting all the evidences, outward and 
inward, historical and spiritual, that bear upon 



THE LIMITATIONS OF LAW. 



49 



the subject, I perceive that God has offset the 
limitation of the Divine law by three gifts, — 
by the gift of the Saviour to redeem ; by the 
gift of the Spirit to renew ; by the gift of 
the Word to enlighten. 

By the gift, I say, of the Saviour to re- 
deem. " For what the law could not do, in that 
it was weak through the flesh, God sending 
His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and 
for sin, condemned sin in the flesh." " Christ 
was once offered to bear the sins of many." 1 
" He is the propitiation for our sins, and not 
for ours only, but also for the whole world." 2 
"For He hath made Him to be sin for us, 
Who knew no sin, that we might be made the 
righteousness of God in Him." 3 

God has offset the limitation of the Divine 
law by the gift of the Spirit to renew. " Not 
by works of righteousness which we have done, 
but according to His mercy He saved us, by 
the washing of regeneration and renewing of 
the Holy Ghost ; which He shed on us abun- 
dantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour ; that 
being justified by His grace, we should be made 
heirs according to the hope of eternal life." 4 

God has offset the limitation of the Divine 



1 Heb. ix. 28. 
3 2 Cor. v. 28. 



2 1 Jno. ii. 2, K. V. 
* Tit. iii. 5-7. 



50 



THE LIMITATIONS OF LAW. 



law by the gift of the Word to enlighten. " Of 
His own will begat He us by the word of 
truth." 1 6( Being born again, not of corrupti- 
ble seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of 
God, which liveth and abideth forever." 2 

I find myself drawn, then, to the conviction 
that there are three essential things which dis- 
tinguish Gospel Christianity from all other 
alleged forms of Christianity : The atoning 
Saviour is essential; the Holy Ghost is essen- 
tial ; the revealed Word of God is essential, — 
the Saviour to redeem ; the Spirit to renew ; 
the Word to enlighten. In these three essen- 
tials I find God's complete offset to the limita- 
tion of law. Redemption, renewal, enlight- 
enment, — these are the things that the law 
could not do in that it was weak through the 
flesh. Redemption, renewal, enlightenment, — 
these are the hopes that lift one out of pessi- 
mism into Christianity. Redemption, renewal, 
enlightenment, — these are the good news of 
God to a blighted, hopeless world : redemption 
through an incarnate Saviour, renewal through 
a regenerating Spirit, enlightenment through 
an inspired Revelation of truth. 

To every heart which feels the pressure of 
those human conditions, personal and univer- 

1 Jas. v. 18. 2 1 Pet. i. 23. 



THE LIMITATIONS OF LAW. 



51 



sal, that have driven so many into bitter, rest- 
less pessimism ; which is conscious of sin in 
itself, and which, with a shudder of horror, 
conceives what sin and death are doing in the 
world to-day; to every such thoughtful heart 
God offers these truths, the only solution of 
the human problem for the individual or for 
the race. Kedemption by the Saviour ; renewal 
by the Spirit; enlightenment by the Word. 
And as to your own personal action in relation 
to these three gifts, I say : For redemption, 
believe, with the whole weight of a desperate 
faith, — believe on the Lord J esus Christ ; for 
renewal, submit your mind to the Holy Ghost, 
and go with Him where He leads ; for en- 
lightenment, reverence this Book, as the death- 
less Word of God ; this Book, never free, since 
Christ came, from the attacks of infidel and 
rationalist ; never more certain than now to 
stand unshaken till Christ shall come again. 
Amen. 



IV. 



THE JOYS THAT ARE PUECHASED BY 
SORROW. 



IV. 



THE JOYS THAT ARE PURCHASED BY 
SORROW. 

" They that sow in tears shall reap in joy." — Psalm cxxvi. 5. 

I desire to speak of the Joys that are pur- 
chased by Sorrow. In one way or another, 
probably every experience of our life may be 
looked upon as the result of something else. 
Nothing comes separately and without a cause. 
We are perpetually tracing connections be- 
tween causes and effects, either accounting for 
what is, or estimating what might have been, 
under other conditions. When our child is 
smitten with fever, the first thought is, " Where 
and when was she exposed ? " When Lazarus 
is borne to his untimely grave, the sisters say to 
Christ, " If Thou hadst been here our brother 
had not died." 

Among the things woven into the pattern of 
every life are sorrow and joy. Sorrow and joy 
are both causes and effects. Of one person we 
say, " Sorrow has broken down his health." 
Of another person we say, "Joy has made a 



56 



JOYS PURCHASED BY SORROW. 



new man of him." Here sorrow and joy are 
represented as causes. Again, of one we say, 
" He is in sorrow by reason of his mother's 
death/' and of another, " He is full of joy be- 
cause his child has come out into the light of 
the spiritual life." Here joy and sorrow are 
represented as effects resulting from these vari- 
ous events. In our text, joy is represented to 
us as an effect produced through sorrow as its 
antecedent. " They that sow in tears shall 
reap in joy." This presents to our minds the 
conception of joys that are purchased by sor- 
row. We feel this to be a profound concep- 
tion, only to be understood by careful analysis. 
It may perhaps assist us to make this analysis, 
if, for the moment, we place before our minds 
the contrary proposition to that we are about to 
consider, and ask, Are there sorrows that are 
purchased by joy ? Unquestionably there are. 

This is found often to be realized in connec- 
tion with the possession of great natural gifts. 
He who has in unusual measure the genius of 
music holds the passport to a world of joy 
whose very existence is unknown by others. 
To him is granted the peace, or the insight, or 
the aspiring courage, or the rapture, which be- 
long to the various realms of tone ; for him is 
the bliss of access to the palace of harmony, 



JOYS PURCHASED BY SORROW. 57 



where, even when walking in the noisy street, 
or pacing" the bounding deck far out at sea, he 
can in silent joy be mentally walking through 
room after room of splendor, ascending and 
descending golden stairs, and standing rever- 
ently before apocalyptic pictures. But he is 
bound to suffer ; this joy will often purchase 
for him a pain, a restlessness, a depression, a 
sense of horrid discord in life, escaped by 
others, who, being unable to follow him to his 
heights, are not called to suffer with him in his 
depths. 

The sorrow that is purchased by joy is found 
to be realized in connection with the finer train- 
ing of the intellect. What noble happiness 
comes to a creature made in God's image, as 
he becomes conscious of intellectual growth, 
realizes in himself capacities more profound 
and powers more vigorous, conquers new de- 
partments of knowledge, and surrounds his 
mind with the thoughts of scholars and phi- 
losophers, as with a band of faithful and con- 
genial friends. He knows that his critical in- 
stincts have been trained ; that his opinions are 
more mature and more worthy ; that his out- 
look upon the great arena of human reason and 
speculation is far more broad and discriminating 
than of old. This is joy, and yet he is bound 



58 



JOYS PURCHASED BY SORROW. 



to suffer for it, in ways from which the igno- 
rant and the undisciplined shall never suffer. 
" He that increaseth knowledge increaseth sor- 
row." 1 The unquenchable fires of intellectual 
ambition must now forever burn him, and a 
thousand fears, doubts, and anxious reflections, 
to which ignorance remains a happy stranger, 
shall take possession of his mind. 

The sorrow that is purchased by joy is real- 
ized by the intense believer in Christ. No one 
suffers so acutely from the bitter reproaches of 
a condemning conscience, no one bows himself 
so deeply in the dust of humiliation, as he who 
best knows the sweetness of the name of Jesus, 
and the sublimity of the new life. Other men 
may have been able to confess Christ without 
emotion, and to live in the new life without 
joy. He has not been able to escape the hap- 
piness ; for the intensity of his belief in the 
risen Master has created a glorifying sense of 
fellowship with Him, which, amidst the com- 
monplaces of earth, gives to life a daily gift of 
dignity, and freedom, and joyousness. As he 
goes to his common tasks, he feels that a dear 
Guardian is thinking of him and loving him, 
and often, in the sudden perplexities of life, 
he hears that faithful word behind him saying, 

1 Eccl. i. 18. 



JOYS PURCHASED BY SORROW. 59 



u This is the way." 1 And this is his joy, — a 
joy which, I truly think, has not its equal on 
earth, because it is an all-comprehending joy, 
that embraces with overshadowing wings every 
other holy joy which life contains. But he 
who has this joy must suffer for it. A rela- 
tionship so transcendent in its spiritual import, 
so sensitive, so sacred, is disturbed by sins 
which pass unnoticed over the experience of 
other lives. The spiritual life becomes sensi- 
tive as the eyeball, where a grain of dust, which 
would be brushed unconsciously from the hand, 
occasions an agony that demands immediate 
attention and relief. 

The sorrow that is purchased by joy is real- 
ized when the desolating separations of time 
or the dissolving touch of death bring to an 
end the most precious companionships of our 
life. Do we not know when we love intensely 
that this ecstatic delight of unrestrained affec- 
tion is daily adding intensity to that desolation 
which would set in, were death to snatch away 
the object of our joy? Do we not understand, 
when we allow ourselves to become dependent 
upon the strong and steadfast friend, when 
we permit ourselves to condition our peace of 
mind and our exercise of choice upon the privi- 

1 Isa. xxx. 20, 21. 



60 



JOYS PURCHASED BY SORROW. 



leofe of conference with the human heart that 
seems to know us almost better than we know 
ourselves, we are storing up profounder lone- 
liness for those years when we may call, and 
that friend cannot answer us, when we may 
seek, and that friend cannot be found ? Do 
we not perceive that the happier a home is, 
that the more dear our children are, by so much 
shall those joys purchase larger draughts of 
sorrow, as the years draw nigh when all this 
is changed? We do know it; we do under- 
stand it ; we do perceive it ; yet if we are wise 
we will only love our treasures more tenderly, 
and live in our friends more richly, " while we 
may," assured that God has somewhere for us, 
here or above, full compensation for sorrows 
that are purchased by such pure and noble 

These reflections, following upon what may 
be called the reverse presentation of this sub- 
ject, prepare our minds the more keenly to ap- 
preciate that element in the words of our text 
which has so greatly endeared them to human 
hearts. " They that sow in tears shall reap in 
joy." As thoughtful persons pass through life 
they are, as we have seen, compelled to admit 
that man's experience, on some of its finest and 
most elevated lines, is the purchase of sorrow 



JOYS PURCHASED BY SORROW. 61 



by joy, — that the concentration of the purest 
happiness involves, in many ways, the possi- 
bility, if not the certainty, of more poignant 
sorrow. It has ever seemed, therefore, a most 
blessed equalizing of man's lot to be assured 
that life contains for some at least, if not for 
all, joys that are purchased by sorrow ; that all 
which may begin in tears does not of necessity 
end in tears ; that there are harvestings for 
some marvellously unlike the seed-sowings ; 
nay, more, that there are joys which could not 
be the heart-filling, strength-renewing things 
they are, had they not sprung out of pain and 
the sowings of tears. The moment we set our 
minds upon this theme, " The joys that are 
purchased by sorrow," we perceive its far-reach- 
ing, manifold applications to the life and the 
energy of man. To say that well-nigh every 
joy in human life has some element or touch of 
sadness blended with it, is a truth, but not the 
truth we are endeavoring to express to-day. 
He who was the deepest student of the heart's 
joy and suffering, of life's mixed light and 
darkness, that has spoken since the Hebrew 
psalmists, has spoken of " our joys" as "three 
parts pain." 1 Granting that they are, this is 
not the thought that is chiefly embodied in that 

1 Robert Browning, Rabbi Ben Ezra. 



62 



JOYS PURCHASED BY SORROW. 



magnificent line of hope, " They that sow in 
tears shall reap in joy." That tells us not so 
much of the pain that may he mixed with joy, 
but of the joy that is purchased and purchas- 
able only through pain. There is such joy, 
and it is the harvest of those who have been 
brave enough to sow in tears. Herein is a law, 
reaching, in its scope, from things physical and 
material up to things that link our nature in 
with the very Cross and Passion of the Son 
of God, — the law of joy that is purchased by 
sorrow. 

Some are shut out from the scope of this 
law so that it does not cover them nor touch 
them ; they live and die outside of its influ- 
ence. Who are they that live outside of its 
influence? They are those who have sought 
happiness as an end in itself, and as the chief 
purpose of life, and who have set themselves 
to attain that end by evading pain, and strain, 
and the hardness of things wherever they can ; 
they are those who have, consciously or uncon- 
sciously, confused the idea of sorrow and hard- 
ness with the idea of evil, as, in common, things 
to be avoided ; they have confounded ease with 
good, and have lived, making a study of ease, 
calculating how to carry on life with the mini- 
mum disturbance of ease. I speak in perfect 



JOYS PURCHASED BY SORROW. 63 



kindness and good faith when I say : " They 
have their reward ; " such a theory of life has 
its obvious compensations. But such a life, 
with its inherent dread of discomfort, and, at 
last, its almost involuntary protest against 
sorrow, seems, I think, to be doing its own 
finer selfhood a perpetual injustice in making 
so much of ease ; for it is compelling itself to 
live, so far as possible, outside of that broad 
zone of experience, and outside of that great 
law within which are surely comprehended some 
of the most truly grand manifestations of char- 
acter, and some of the most truly lofty joys, 
which have ever been, — the joys that are pur- 
chased by sorrow. 

Down, as I have said, into matters which are 
physical and material, and up, as I have said, 
into things which link our nature with the 
very Cross and Passion of the Son of God, 
reaches this broad and profoundly human law 
of the joys that are purchased by sorrow. 
66 They that sow in tears shall reap in joy ! " 
Is it not the law of the athlete, as through 
weeks and months he surrenders his freedom 
and his ease to lead, under sternest discipline, 
the life of hardship ; and then, schooled by pri- 
vation, goes into the field where pain and pos- 
sible injury await him ? But when the flags 



64 JOYS PURCHASED BY SORROW. 



are waving and ten thousand sympathetic voices 
are telling him his victory, then he reaps in 
joy. Does he regret the painful sowing, the 
privation, the uncompromising tutelage, the 
sprained hand, the aching muscles, the throb- 
bing head ? No ! 

" He may smile at troubles gone 
Who sets the victor-garland on ! " 1 

" They that sow in tears shall reap in joy ! " 
Is it not the law of the mountain-climber? 
Over the foothills and up the glen, out on the 
miles of bog, out on the gigantic shoulder, on 
toward the slippery screes — and his limbs are 
aching as with rheumatism, and drops like 
tears are falling from his face, though it is 
bitterly cold. But no bed of down could tempt 
him to stop, no flowery valley of delight could 
draw him back from that cold, inhospitable 
crag, up which, lying almost against the rugged 
hill, torn by a freezing wind, he is making the 
last grand effort. He loves the freezing wind, 
and the pain, and the bald, solitary crag ; for 
here, even here at last, is the cairn, — the earth 
and the clouds are below him, and he reaps 
in joy! 

" They that sow in tears shall reap in joy ! " 

1 St. Joseph of the Studium, circ. A. D. 830, tr. Rev. Jno. 
Mason Neale. 



JOYS PURCHASED BY SORROW. 65 



Is it not the law of him who conquers sloth ? 
" Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little 
folding of the hands to sleep/' 1 — so pleads 
the flesh, ignobly cautious of itself, daunted 
by base visions of shivering discomfort. But 
the spirit halts not at the pleading of the flesh. 
Taught of God, it knows how much of charac- 
ter ebbs away in life's minor indulgences, or is 
built up in the endurance of life's minor dis- 
comforts ; how many greater battles are lost or 
won beforehand on these small, inglorious bat- 
tlefields ; and brushing away the webs of sloth, 
accepting, nay, welcoming and rejoicing in the 
strengthening tonic of discomfort, it saves the 
whole day by the sunrise victory, and reaps in 

" They that sow in tears shall reap in joy." 
Is it not the sacred law of home life ? As with 
the years come these mystical burdens of care 
and grief and pain and sickness and separation ; 
as the life of one is imperilled for another, and 
the toil of one is poured out for all ; as the 
loves and solicitudes of all are twined and inter- 
twined, and perchance as the ivies of memory 
are clustering over some grave that has been 
many times sown with tears, is • there not each 
year a richer reaping in joy, that could not have 

1 Prov. xxiv. 33. 



66 JOYS PURCHASED BY SORROW. 



been the joy it is but for the hallowed soil of 
immortal experiences out of which it springs ? 

" They that sow in tears shall reap in joy." 
Is not this the law of sympathy ? Oh, mistake 
of mistakes ! to think that they are happiest 
who enter least into the sorrows of others ; who 
fly, like moths, always where the light is bright- 
est. Ah ! my companions of many years, who 
by the loveliness of your examples have so 
often taught me the depth, the tenderness, the 
versatility of Christian sympathy, how well you 
know that the true sons of consolation are 
the happiest men on earth ; that there is a joy 
which, like heaven's own light, descends upon 
one and illumines one's path, when one knows 
that that most holy office of the comforter has 
not been essayed in vain. Ah, what sympathy 
costs ! what it takes out of one's life, when 
it ceases to be conventional, and becomes the 
true " ovu7t&(7%(d" " suffering with," only they 
know who have thus suffered with their fel- 
low-men ! And what it gives back to one's 
life, — the greater things it puts into one's 
soul, the reapings of joy purchased by these 
sowings of tears, — they only who have known 
the one can conceive the other ! 

But there is one other application of this 
law of the joys that are purchased by sorrow, 



JOYS PURCHASED BY SORROW. 67 



and one only among the many which yet re- 
main undescribed, of which I wish at this time 
to speak. It is one which may be truly said 
to link our lives with the very Cross and Pas- 
sion of the Son of God. " They that sow in 
tears shall reap in joy." Is not this the law of 
all higher spiritual effort ? I dare not lead 
you to infer from this that every spiritual effort 
which we make is crowned with success. That, 
alas ! may not be true. There may be those 
whose life has for years been one of sad effort, 
to whom no joyful reaping of their heart's de- 
sire is allotted. Let us, then, draw no false or 
misguiding inference from these words. But 
let us surely catch the true thought that is here 
brought before the mind of every one of us 
who knows what spiritual effort means. " They 
that sow in tears shall reap in joy." They shall 
have the joy who have loved their work well 
enough to be willing to suffer in the doing of 
it. How many can bear witness that all the 
greater spiritual efforts of our lives for others 
must be a sowing in tears. There are reasons 
which, applicable to one case and to another, 
make it true of all that when the joy does 
come after spiritual effort, it is a joy purchased 
by sorrow. In earlier days I was surprised at 
this, and much disheartened that there should 



68 JOYS PURCHASED BY SORROW. 



be so much sorrow in my work. Now I per- 
ceive it is a law, common to all the greater 
forms of spiritual effort, and that I could not 
have had the later joy of any effort without the 
foregoing sorrow. Why is this ? In some in- 
stances the sorrow of the higher spiritual effort 
springs from what in the physical world would 
be called the resistance of matter. In the spir- 
itual world, it is the resistance of the life or the 
lives for which you are pouring yourself out : 
sometimes an active resistance, defiant or flip- 
pant ; more often a passive resistance, as of 
dead matter, not knowing what you mean, not 
caring what you mean. 

Again the sorrow of the spiritual effort 
springs from the utter uncertainty which envi- 
rons it. You have shot an arrow in the air. 
Where has it fallen ? You have poured the 
very life of your life out like water on the 
ground. Where has it sunken out of sight ? 

Again, the sorrow of the spiritual effort 
springs from the awful sense of personal limi- 
tation : God so infinite, you so terribly finite ; 
God's truth so sky-broad, the measure of your 
mind so narrow ; Christ's love so mighty, your 
voice, proclaiming it, so feeble ; till the earthen 
vessel of one's life seems almost to degrade 
and belittle the treasure committed to it. 



JOYS PURCHASED BY SORROW. 



C9 



Again, the sorrow of the spiritual effort 
springs from the travail of the soul. If we 
ourselves were not in Christ and of Christ, this 
would not be. We might still love with a hu- 
man love, and work with a human interest for 
the objects nearest to us, but we would not 
have the travail of the soul. But this is the 
very signature of Jesus upon our work, show- 
ing us that, after all, it is not ours, but His. 
It is not we alone who are sorrowing over this 
wayward soul, going so fast away from God; 
it is not we alone who are working in an almost 
anguish of desire to help this mind captured 
by doubts, and so helpless, to make that great 
self -surrender to Christ. It is He, — it is He, 
Who is sorrowing with us, Who is working 
with us. When one thinks of this ? one is 
ready to accept the sorrow of the higher spir- 
itual effort, and to go on, sowing in tears. 

But now and again Christ, Who is working, 
with and sorrowing with one and another of us 
in our higher spiritual efforts, — Christ sees of 
the travail of His Soul and is satisfied, and that 
for which He and we travailed is done, — a soul 
is brought into the new life. Then, the joy. 
Ah ! some of you know it. Mothers, who for 
their sons have sown in tears year after year ; 
and now the joy of reaping exceeds in one day 



70 JOYS PURCHASED BY SORROW. 



the sorrow of those years. Friends, who have 
sown in tears for other friends, lovely and no- 
ble in all thing's but that one thing, — the love- 
liness of Christ ; and now the reaping, the com- 
ing again with rejoicing, bringing their sheaves 
with them. 

" They that sow in tears shall reap in joy." 
And how little any of us can know on earth of 
what that means, concerning the resurrection 
of the blessed dead from graves that we have 
set with flowers and that we have watered with 
tears ; concerning the resurrection of buried 
efforts, that we had mournfully laid aside as 
fruitless forever, but over which Christ has 
watched, preserving a germ that shall be re- 
vealed in heaven ; concerning the resurrection 
of our own selfhood in that nobler life, when all 
the intensity of present experiences, and all the 
pathos of present limitations shall be changed 
to the glorious expression and the spiritual 
boundlessness of " the Life that is life indeed." 
Amen. 



V. 



THE ELEMENT OF SILENCE IN PER- 
SONAL RELIGION. 



V. 



THE ELEMENT OF SILENCE IN PER- 
SONAL RELIGION. 

" A time to keep silence." — Ecclesiastes iii. 7. 

The theme is, The Element of Silence in 
Personal Religion. There is a time to speak ; 
a time for the clear, courageous word of testi- 
mony; a time when, as Peter says, we must 
acknowledge and justify our hope by giving 
with meekness and with reverence a reasonable 
account of it to those who ask : 1 but there 
also comes in every life a time to keep silence ; 
a time when silence is more sublime, more 
humble, and worthier of a son of God, than 
speech. 

When we examine the history of religious 
opinion, and attempt to arrange the views 
which have been held regarding man's relation 
to Divine Truth, we find two extremes, — the 
extreme of under-statement and the extreme of 
over-statement. The extreme of under-state- 
ment is Agnosticism, — that you cannot know 

1 1 Pet. iii. 15. 



74 SILEXCE IN PERSONAL RELIGION. 



anything definitely about God and life ; conse- 
quently you cannot say anything definitely 
about God and life. The extreme of over- 
statement is excessiye Affirmation, — that we 
haye a full and definite reyelation of God and 
life ; consequently it is our duty definitely to 
affirm in words all that is revealed of God and 
life, for the purpose of making our system of 
theology complete. Granting entirely the sin- 
cerity with which both of these extreme views 
are held, I am certain that each view does 
injustice to personal religion, and that both 
views, though proceeding from exactly opposite 
standpoints, do precisely the same kind of 
injustice. I will explain : Here are two men ; 
one is a Cornish miner, one is a Swiss shep- 
herd. They meet as inmates in an asylum for 
the blind. The Swiss shepherd asks the Cor- 
nish miner, " How came you to be blind ? " 
And he says, " Too much darkness. I lived in 
a mine ; I made no allowance for light ; finally 
my sight gave way." And the Cornish miner 
asks the Swiss shepherd, " How came you to 
be blind ? " And he says, " Too much light. 
I lived on the snow mountains. I made no 
allowance for shadow, and at last my sight 
gave way." Now these men lived in opposite 
extremes of primary condition ; they commit- 



SILENCE IN PERSONAL RELIGION. 75 



ted the same injustice of making no allowance 
for an indispensable physical compensation. 
They met at length in the gloom of a common 
calamity* So the man who embraced Agnosti- 
cism, who taught himself to affirm nothing, 
who made no allowance for the speech power 
of the immortal spirit, did, at length, the same 
kind of injury to his own spiritual life that 
was done by the man who felt it his duty to 
affirm in words all that may be known of God ; 
who attempted to formulate all truth ; who 
made no allowance for those conceptions of 
God which we can only know in silence, and 
for those agonizings and aspirings of faith and 
of hope which are belittled by words, which 
rise immeasurably above the scope of speech. 
The one practically denies the time to speak. 
The other practically denies the time to keep 
silence. Both are unjust to themselves. Both 
may unconsciously be standing in the same 
shadow. 

I am to illustrate to-day the place and power 
of the element of silence in personal religion. 
I enter upon this effort with extreme willing- 
ness : because it is so perfectly evident to me 
that God is unsearchable, and that life is un- 
searchable : it is indeed an infinite relief to 
believe that I am under no obligation even to 



76 SILENCE IN PERSONAL RELIGION. 



try to affirm in my words all that I seem to see 
revealed of God ; nor even to try to explain all 
that I see of the movin^s of the Hand of God 
in human life. It is indeed an infinite relief 
to believe that I have the right to be silent, 
and that by this silence I do neither evade my 
duty, nor stultify my intelligence, nor trifle 
with my own sincerity. 

If we may apply to this subject an argument 
from analogy, the duty of regarding the ele- 
ment of silence as a perpetual element of per- 
sonal religion would seem to be powerfully 
suggested to our minds by the course which 
God sees fit to pursue in the administration of 
His providential government, as well as in His 
government of grace. How little, of all that 
God does, does He see fit to explain to us in 
our present state of existence ! How constantly, 
in the realms of Providence and of Grace, He 
is apparently saying to us, " What I do thou 
knowest not now, but thou shalt know here- 
after " ! 1 Perceive in the realm of Providence 
how life, growth, suffering, death, are inexpli- 
cable. Life ! who knows its origin ? For a 
time it was triumphantly believed that the 
secret of Life had been discovered in spontane- 
ous generation. But that has been thrown 

1 St. Jno. xiii. 1. 



SILENCE IN PERSONAL RELIGION. 77 



aside, as an exploded hypothesis, by the great 
thinkers who proclaimed it. Professor Mome- 
rie, in his splendid book on Agnosticism, pays 
a well-deserved tribute to Professor Tyndall's 
scientific heroism in repudiating his own doc- 
trine of spontaneous generation. "I know of 
nothing nobler," says Momerie, " than the con- 
duct of Professor Tyndall in regard to the 
theory of spontaneous generation. He himself 
hoped that it would turn out true, and yet it 
was by his own laborious efforts that the exper- 
iments, previously supposed to have established 
it, were proved unsatisfactory." 1 Growth ! who 
knows its law ? " Which of you by taking 
thought can add one cubit to his stature? " 2 Or 
who can account for the process of that mystic 
change whereby the being which was once a 
helpless nursling in our arms is presently bound- 
ing at our side in youth's bravery, or bending 
down to us in manly tenderness to support our 
tottering age ? Suffering ! What of it ? Truly 
we who are privileged to minister in the places 
of pain may note the heart-straining phenom- 
ena of Suffering, may in each specific instance 
assign a cause for pain ; but who — ah, who ! 
— has yet accounted for the allotments of Suf- 

1 Momerie 's Agnosticism, pp. 28, 29. 

2 St. Matt. vi. 27. 



78 SILENCE IN PERSONAL RELIGION. 



f ering ? who has found a clue to the distribu- 
tion of pain ? Death ! we have seen it. Ah ! 
bethink you, have we seen it ? We have seen 
the dying ; we have seen the dead ; but who 
has seen Death ? Who has discovered what 
Death is? No man can explain to us Life, 
Growth, Suffering, Death, and when we ask of 
God, God answers us by silence. So does He, 
as well, under the government of Grace. What 
is that new life we call the Regeneration ? 
How works upon our spiritual substance that 
Divine Regenerator, that Power-agent of the 
new birth ? " The wind bloweth where it list- 
eth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but 
canst not tell whence it cometh and whither it 
goeth. So is every one that is born of the 
Spirit." 1 Think of this element of silence in 
God's natural and spiritual administrations, 
and reason from it to the element of silence 
in personal religion : it is our best, our hum- 
blest, our sublimest answer to the silence of 
God. Where He has not explained Himself, 
why need we presume it our duty to try to 
explain Him ? Where He has disclosed Him- 
self but dimly, why should we feel bound to 
affirm Him distinctly ? Where He has covered 
Himself with darkness, why should we try to 

1 St. Jno. iii. 8. 



SILENCE IN PERSONAL RELIGION. 79 



probe Him with light ? Through each crowded, 
throbbing year of ministry among human lives, 
I am brought to realize more solemnly how 
unsearchable God is, and how unsearchable life 
is. I feel more and more that, in dealing with 
Divine Truth and in dealing with human life, 
there are, for us all, times to keep silence ; 
there are phases of God and phases of life 
where affirmation is not demanded, because 
affirmation is impossible ; where explanation is 
not enjoined, because explanation is impracti- 
cable ; there are conceptions of God only to be 
known in silence ; there are agonies and aspi- 
rations of faith and of hope which rise above 
the tangled forests of words into the white, 
motionless mountain-peaks of silence. 

Before going a step further, I wish to guard 
myself from being misunderstood by any. I 
conceive of personal religion as mainly affirm- 
ative. There is far more speech than silence 
in it. It abounds in gladdening, quickening, 
moving affirmations. I believe that the Life 
Eternal involves not only the power of know- 
ing the only true God, and Jesus Christ Whom 
He hath sent, but the power of affirming our 
knowledge of God in Christ. Hear that mar- 
vellous series of affirmations with which John 
closes the first epistle : " He that hath the Son 



80 SILENCE IN PERSONAL RELIGION. 



hath the life ; he that hath not the Son of God 
hath not the life. These things have I written 
unto you, that ye may know that ye have eter- 
nal life. This is the boldness which we have 
toward Him, that if we ask anything according 
to His Will, He heareth us ; and if we know 
that He heareth us whatsoever we ask, we 
know that we have the petitions which we 
have asked of Him. We know that whosoever 
is begotten of God sinneth not. We know 
that we are of God, and the whole world 
lieth in the Evil One. And we know that 
the Son of God is come and hath given us 
an understanding, that we know Him that is 
true." 1 

These are knowledges that we can express in 
words. But I also believe that expressible and 
explainable truths do not constitute all the 
truths we are competent to hold; that above 
and beyond the Hmits of expression sweep the 
fields and heights of silence ; that no creed is 
exhaustive, — that no creed can be, because 
there are truths which transcend formulation, 
and which must be read between the lines ; 
that I can never say all I believe ; that this is 
not that I believe less than I say, but that I 
believe more and greater than I can say ; that 
1 1 Juo. v. 12-20. 



SILENCE IN PERSONAL RELIGION. 81 



there are phases of God's Being, His counsels, 
His decrees, His esoteric Life ; and that there 
are phases of human experience and destiny 
which lie in ranges transcending human affirma- 
tion, and calling for faith and for hope, whose 
wings would be broken, whose breath would 
be stifled, by words, — whose one condition of 
living at such an altitude is silence. 

A time to keep silence ! Of the day and 
the hour when that time shall break in calm 
waves of stillness over any troubled soul know- 
eth no man save as the Father leads him on. 
There is a time when silence is the utterance 
of wisdom ; a time when silence is the answer 
of power ; a time when silence is the speech of 
faith ; a time when silence is the unspeakable 
hope. 

There is, I say, a time when silence is the 
utterance of wisdom. It is the time when the 
soul frames before itself the conception of 
God's eternal decrees. " Be still, and know 
that I am God." 1 Be still and know ! Relate 
those words to one another ; relate them as 
cause and effect, — Be still and know, — and 
they open to you a wondrous suggestion, — of 
knowledge, whose price is stillness, whose an- 
nihilation is the confusion, the impotence of 

1 Ps. xlvi. 10. 



82 SILENCE IN PERSONAL RELIGION 



words. " Be still and know that I am God." 
Is it an injustice to the powers of language, 
an injustice to our own intelligence, to admit 
that the modus of God's secret consciousness 
transcends verbal formulation, except where 
God the Holy Ghost has used language in the 
process of revelation? Is it not rather an 
acknowledgment of strength than a confession 
of weakness, that in the endeavor to conceive 
of the Divine consciousness, and the Divine 
counsels, and the Divine decrees, we are per- 
mitted to attain, through the medium of silent 
communion, a conception of God superior to 
and more boundless than any conception which 
we can formulate under the inflexible forms of 
language? Do we not come nearer to God in 
thought than we can ever describe in speech ? 
Has not the communion of the invisible soul 
with the Invisible God attained its highest 
consummations when — I will not say speech 
deserted us, but when we deserted speech, and 
climbed into the holy mount of silence, and 
were still, and knew that God is God ? When 
I ask myself, " Why does our conception of 
God become silent as it becomes supreme ? " 
I find no answer but that in which Paul de- 
scribed to the Corinthians, in faltering words, 
the crowning experience of his spiritual life : 



SILENCE IN PERSONAL RELIGION. 83 



" I know a man in Christ, — - fourteen years 
ago, — such a one caught up even to the third 
heaven. And I know such a man, how that 
he was caught up into Paradise, and heard 
unspeakable words which it is not lawful for 
a man to utter." 1 

There is a time when silence is the answer of 
power. It is the time when controversy seeks 
to overthrow our personal faith in Christ. In 
the day when Jesus stood (even as to many 
He appears yet to stand) before the judgment 
seat of man, when He was accused by the chief 
priests and elders, He answered nothing. " Then 
saith Pilate unto Him : Hearest Thou not how 
many things they witness against Thee ? And 
He gave him no answer, not even to one 
word, insomuch that the governor marvelled 
greatly." 2 Was He deaf ? Did He not really 
hear the charges brought against Him ? Or was 
His Soul, even in that turbulent and distress- 
ing hour, communing with His Father in that 
inner sanctuary of power, and girding Itself so 
diligently for the coming Cross He thought 
not of His accusers save to forgive them and to 
pray for them ? The possibility of controversy 
impends over the path of every Christian ; he 

1 2 Cor. xii. 2-4, R. V. 

2 St. Matt, xxvii. 13, 14, R. V. 



84 SILENCE IN PERSONAL RELIGION. 



is likely at any time to have his faith assailed, 
his hope questioned. Nor should he purchase 
an ignoble peace by evading that meek and 
reverent answer which, alike on the lip of the 
scholar and of the child, is a becoming tribute 
to the Master. There is no intrinsic unfair- 
ness in controversy, no reason for resenting the 
challenge surely to be flung at us sooner or 
later. But there comes a stage in controversy 
when the effort is made to impugn and to over- 
throw our personal faith in Christ ; when He 
is brought to the judgment-seat and taunted 
with false witness, as of old ; and when we, 
identified with Him, are asked to reply in His 
stead. He has told us, by His own conduct, 
what to do. It is a time to keep silence. 
Where He no longer spoke for Himself, we 
need no longer speak for Him. Silence was 
then, silence is still, the answer of power ; 
silence like His Own, strong, patient, self-con- 
sciously Divine. Well may they who have the 
witness in themselves regard life as too short, 
too busy, and too grand to spend, in the quib- 
bles of controversy, strength that should be 
kept for work, for prayer and for suffering ! 

There is a time when silence is the speech of 
faith. It is the time when the iron of be- 
reavement and other suffering enters into the 



SILENCE IN PERSONAL RELIGION. 85 



soul. " I was dumb, I opened not my mouth, 
because Thou didst it." 1 This silence, which 
asks not why God did, but is dumb because 
He did it, is the highest eloquence of faith. 
For the instinct of suffering is to ask a rea- 
son. None who have been much with suffering: 
can doubt that this is the instinct. The first 
word in the vocabulary of the deeper sorrows 
is, " Why ? " Sometimes that word is spoken 
in the bitterness of a broken-hearted protest 
against the will of God, but far oftener as the 
distressing and unsatisfying question of a baf- 
fled Christian, torturing the spirit in vain efforts 
to assign a reason for the stroke. I thank God 
that faith consists neither in asking nor in an- 
swering that terrible " Why ? " — that the high- 
est speech of faith in such an hour is silence. 
" I was dumb because Thou didst it." Faith is 
in being silent when one knows not why. We 
only know that suffering is a part of our ap- 
pointment here. 

" If, impatient, thou let slip thy cross, 
Thou wilt not find it in this world again, 
Nor in another : here, and here alone, 
Is given thee to suffer for God's sake. 
In other worlds we shall more perfectly 
Serve Him and love Him, praise Him, work for Him, 
Grow near and nearer Him with all delight. 
But then we shall not any more be called 
To suffer, which is our appointment here. 

1 Ps. xxxix. 9, 



86 SILENCE IN PERSONAL RELIGION 



" Let us take heed in time 
That God may now be glorified in us. 
And while we suffer, let us set our souls 
To suffer perfectly ; since this alone, 
The suffering, which is this world's special grace, 
May here be perfected and left behind." 1 

Finally : There is a time when silence is the 
unspeakable hope. It is the time when the 
mystery of human destiny overpowers us. For 
some of us, life in its past, its present, and its 
future aspects presents such impenetrable mys- 
teries, we see such things in our own life 
problems and in the problem and destiny of 
innumerable other beings, as drive us to the un- 
speakable despair or to the unspeakable hope. 
It is vain, it is unlawful, it is rash, it is un- 
scriptural, it is impossible to put an unspeaka- 
ble hope into words of affirmation. To affirm 
an unspeakable hope is to destroy it as a hope 
by making it an unscriptural dogma. But who 
could live, other than a lif e of strange dulness, 
without that unspeakable, unwritable hope : the 
hope that still, amidst thwarted longings and 
unanswered prayers, we shall yet not fail of 
revealing unto others the All-perfect Good, nor 
fail, out of hunger, to be made satisfied, out 
of weariness, to be made strong; the hope 
that they for whom we have prayed shall not 

1 The Disciples, H. E. H. King, pp. 118, 119. 



SILENCE IN PERSONAL RELIGION. 87 



perish as if we had not prayed, nor die as if 
we had not lived ? Who shall forbid that un- 
speakable hope ? Shall the Interceding Saviour 
forbid it, Whose Soul, in travail still, is one 
day to be satisfied? 1 Who shall forbid the un- 
speakable hope that, when the clouds lift and 
the smoke of time is blown before the clear 
wind of eternity, we may see that the power of 
the Cross has conquered in many a heart where, 
by all outward tokens, it seemed to have had no 
victory? Who shall forbid the unspeakable 
hope that, when the clouds lift and the smoke 
of time is blown before the clear wind of eter- 
nity, we may find that the agencies of the 
Eedeeming Sacrifice have penetrated, in ways 
and unto depths unknown to us, into that 
countless throng of human intelligences who 
for two hundred generations have been swept 
into eternity with no human voice to tell them 
that Jesus is the Redeemer, slain from the 
foundation of the world, 2 and that His Blood 
cleanseth us from all sin ? 3 Amen. 

1 Isa. liii. 11. 2 Rev. xiii. 8. 3 1 Jno. i. 1. 



VI. 

THE MINISTRY OF CHANGES. 



VI. 



THE MINISTRY OF CHANGES. 

"Because they have no changes, therefore they fear not 
God." — Psalm lv. 19. 

I would speak of the Ministry of Changes. 
The verse of which the text is a part is ranked 
by Hebraists as one of the obscure verses of 
God's Word. Ewald, Hengstenberg, Perowne, 
and Thrupp are in opposition to one another 
regarding the meaning of the Psalmist : but I 
can find from them and from others nothing 
clearer or more probable than the rendering in 
our own Common Version, and that rendering 
contains a truth so searching and so suggestive, 
I take the reading in the Common Version just 
as it stands : " Because they have no changes, 
therefore they fear not God." 

When we look upon the life of a community 
for any considerable period of time, we dis- 
cover very great differences in the allotment of 
life's serious and trying changes. Three types 
of experience present themselves. We see some 
individuals and some households which during 



92 



THE MINISTRY OF CHANGES. 



this long period are exempt from all serious 
and saddening change : the tide of peaceful 
prosperity is one long flood with no ebb ; the 
main conditions of living appear established 
on foundations that cannot be shaken ; year 
follows year in tranquil succession ; and we 
say, " They are not in trouble like other men." 
But at their very side, all these years, have been 
persons and households tried with the disci- 
pline of incessant changes : almost no element 
of their life has been untouched by the altera- 
tions of time ; almost no quiet spaces of per- 
manence have been granted unto them ; their 
life has been transitional, experimental, irregu- 
lar. Between these two extreme types is a 
third : the home that through the greater part 
of this period has been sheltered from changes ; 
has enjoyed a rich measure of that blessed and 
bountiful sameness. But now it has had not 
many changes ; perhaps only one or two : and 
oh, how they have altered the meaning of 
life ! One dear lamb has been taken out of 
the fold ; but how that single going forth has 
changed all ! One dear-friend influence has 
vanished out of the daily life ; but how many 
things have lost the touch of that light-giving 
friend ! 

It is true there are many changes coming 



THE MINISTRY OF CHANGES. 



93 



upon us, in the bounty of God, which are 
always and only happy. Every sunrise is a 
change ; every new year ; every new voice ; 
every new friend ; every new power is a change. 

"New ever} r morning is the Love 
Onr wakening and uprising prove. 
New mercies each returning day 
Hover around us as we pray." 

Yes, the multiplyings of our precious things 
are changes : but it is not of these changes I 
speak to-day ; not of the gifts we gain, but 
of the gifts we lose ; not of the changes that 
make our life more full and more complete, but 
of those that leave it emptier ; of those that 
take out of it joys long delighted in, help long 
relied upon ; of those that in their occurrence 
shatter familiar conditions, and force the soul 
forth into untried and undesired pilgrimage ; 
of those that show us our own weakness, and 
compel us trembling to begin again the great 
experiment of living. 

The thought of changes is to most of us a 
sad thought. To some, more than to others, 
it is a most bitter thought ; for some natures, 
more than others, depend upon and delight in 
the unchanged continuance of every dear and 
treasured influence and possession. There are 
undoubted vestiges of the nomadic spirit in 



94 



THE MINISTRY OF CHANGES. 



some hearts, by which it becomes easy for them 
to submit to great changes, — to strike their 
tent here to-day and pitch it far yonder to-mor- 
row ; to leave old friends and gather new ones. 
But other hearts strike deep roots into all that 
they love, and bind with strong, living ties fa- 
miliar blessings ; and there are some hearts that 
have bled to death in changes, for their cling- 
ing affections were, like arteries, full with the 
heart's blood. To most of us, therefore, I be- 
lieve the thought of changes is a sad thought. 
There are reasons for this. 

We depend on that which is. The vine is 
planted at the root of the cedar-tree, and 
though, had there been no tree, it might have 
found a fence to climb upon, or it might 
have wandered in the grass, it now appropriates 
what is, and hangs its life upon it. It wreathes 
that strong stem with clinging arms ; it mul- 
tiplies itself amidst the branches ; it crowns 
the cedar-top in autumn with a flaming diadem 
of scarlet and gold. So we appropriate what 
is, and grow upon it. And although, had 
the providential conditions of our life been 
other than they are, we should never have un- 
derstood our lack of these, it is true that 
God has given us these and we have clung to 
them, we have grown upon them, we have 



THE MINISTRY OF CHANGES. 



95 



been upheld and uplifted by them, we have 
expressed and completed ourselves by means of 
them. 

The thought of changes is sad because we 
grow established in a satisfying routine. We 
are working hard, but in work we love ; we have 
many duties, but we have learned them, have 
arranged them, and familiarity has made them 
dear ; our loved ones have brought us added 
cares, but their daily affection is more than com- 
pensation, and the routine of life grows satis- 
fying. It is blessed to know well and to be 
well known. Established methods ; home cus- 
toms made easy by unnumbered repetitions ; 
friends whose very weaknesses have grown with 
time not only tolerable but precious, — these 
make up the dear routine across which the 
thought of changes falls like the mournful 
shadow of a cloud. 

The thought of changes is sad because we 
lean on that which gives happiness. We love 
the real makers of our happiness. Dependence 
upon existing sources of happiness is the first 
intuition of the heart; and by as much as Jthe 
greatness of happiness is, by so much are the 
terror and dismay of the heart, under the 
thought of change. How strong yet how 
pathetic is the instinct to banish the thought 



96 THE MINISTRY OF CHANGES. 



of changes when the fountains of joy are 
brimful ! If the wish of a happy heart could 
make the sun stand still, late indeed would 
have been the sunset on some days that we 
remember. 

And yet, though this our first thought is so 
true, though the thought of changes is a sad 
thought, it is equally true that the absence of 
great changes is a condition of spiritual dan- 
ger. -"Because they have no changes, there- 
fore they fear not God." There is a ministry 
in changes, — - a ministry of grace, which He 
Who changes not would work in us ; and they 
who have no changes must lose that ministry, 
and do in fact encounter perils in their spirit- 
ual life. Some lives are wonderfully protected 
from the great, heart-burdening changes which 
are heaped upon others. For long periods of 
years " they are not in trouble as other men ; " 
their home life is singularly tranquil ; their 
nest is not stirred ; they escape the cross. This 
immunity from changes brings certain spiritual 
perils. And while I do not say that all who 
have no changes are overcome by these perils, 
yet all such are subject to them, and should be 
warned against them. Where the life of an 
individual, or the life of a family, glides on for 
a long, long time without any severe changes, 



THE MINISTRY OF CHANGES. 



97 



the serene sameness of prosperity brings these 
dangers : First, The under- valuation of truth. 
Unbroken prosperity in personal or in family 
life tends toward the under- valuation of truth. 
I have sometimes seen truly strong and varied 
landscapes that became flat and tame in un- 
broken sunlight. I know some hills whose 
beauty I never understood except on days of 
many cloud-shadows. And when we remem- 
ber that the gospel of salvation is a story of 
pain, we need not wonder if our life should need 
the great cloud-shadows to make us see the 
grandeur of Calvary. To him who has suf- 
fered as a Christian, the sufferings of Christ 
no longer lack meaning ; to him who has sub- 
mitted in meekness to the severity of changes, 
the Saviour's grand renunciation of Himself 
grows terribly and gloriously real. The peril 
of prosperity is deadness and dulness toward 
truth ; hearing as though one heard not ; see- 
ing as though one saw not ; handling and tast- 
ing the bread and wine of truth as though no 
consecrating Hands were offering them to us, 
no Word Incarnate saying of them : They are 
My Body and My Blood. 

Another peril which comes in the absence of 
changes is the decay of gratitude. They to 
whom life has long been rich and full, and 



98 THE MINISTRY OF CHANGES. 



sheltered from impoverishing changes, are in 
danger of losing that blessed grace of grate- 
fulness which sanctifies the joy of possession. 
We often speak of those who are hardened by 
adversity : are there not as often those who are 
hardened and alienated from the life of God, 
and from the proper appreciation of His gifts, 
by prolonged, changeless prosperity ? And in 
speaking of prosperity, I do not only mean 
great financial abundance, but also the pro- 
longed enjoyment of other and simpler things 
which have yet more to do with the complete- 
ness of life. Such is the gift of health, when 
whole years have passed without one hour of 
prostration or of pain ; when the sense of bod- 
ily limitation is forgotten in the pride of vital- 
ity. Such also is the gift of home life, when 
the circle is unbroken, when no heart-rending 
separations have occurred to test the inten- 
sity of love ; when a man begins to feel home 
life less wonderful and more customary. Such 
also is the gift of religious opportunity, when 
church-going becomes a habit, prayer a form, 
and (I must dare to say it) the Holy Commu- 
nion conventional. These are some of the cir- 
cumstances in which, from many a heart blessed 
with them through long, unchanging years, 
gratitude has decayed and fallen away. One 



THE MINISTRY OF CHANGES. 99 



may have his church so abundantly, his home 
so familiarly, his health so confidently, that all 
conception of these things as gifts of God may 
fade from him. u Because he has no changes, 
he fears not God." 

Another peril, and a greater one, which 
comes in the absence of changes, is the loss of 
the sense of dependence. In the 10th Psalm 
a description is given of one who fears not 
God; and one aspect of his character is the 
absence of the sense of dependence. " He 
hath said in his heart, I shall not be moved ; 
for I shall never be in adversity." 1 Into many 
a life has crept that most subtle and most ter- 
rible loss, in times of unbroken, unchanged 
happiness, — the loss of the sense of depend- 
ence. It has affected the soul's judgment con- 
cerning earthly things ; it has undermined its 
earnestness in prayer; it has tempted it to 
intrust life to the guidance of its own saga- 
city, rather than to the guidance of the Spirit 
and the Providence of God. This soul, de- 
ceived by its own apparently established pros- 
perity, by its own firm hold on the hearts of 
friends, whispers confidently to itself : " I shall 
never be moved, for I shall never be in adver- 
sity." It forgets that it is but a child, and 
1 Ps. x. 6. 



100 THE MINISTRY OF CHANGES, 



less than a child, under the irresistible sweep of 
God's Will, — that He is able with one breath 
to blow away the established constructions of 
years, to rnelt the bands that hold friends 
together. 

There is a degree yet deeper in which the 
sense of dependence has been lost through 
prolonged prosperity. The sense of depend- 
ence upon Christ as the only Refuge of the 
soul may readily be imperilled by conditions of 
long, unchanged success. The success of life 
fosters at length a spiritual self-confidence. A 
good reputation, acknowledged influence, the 
favor and friendship of the powerful, — these 
things may bring upon any of us the sin of 
Laodicea : " Because thou sayest I am rich, and 
increased with goods, and have need of nothing, 
and knowest not that thou art wretched and 
miserable and poor and blind and naked, I 
counsel thee to buy of Me gold tried in the fire, 
that thou may est be rich, and white raiment, 
that thou mayest be clothed ; and anoint thine 
eyes with eye salve, that thou mayest see." 1 
There are many who need these words ; many 
whose steady and prolonged success in earthly 
things has built up beneath them a complaisant 
self -righteousness which resents the idea of being 
1 Rev. iii. 17, 18. 



THE MINISTRY OF CHANGES. 101 



called a helpless and lost sinner, depending 
wholly for salvation on the Blood of the Son 
of God. 

" Because they have no changes, therefore 
they fear not God." There is another thought 
in these words which we cannot state without 
remembering how constantly men try to forget 
it. The only thing perfectly certain in life is 
its changefulness. The law of changes is a 
law that cannot change. It has already been 
carried out in every life that has ever lived 
on earth ; it shall be carried out to the letter 
in our lives. Those who seem, as we look back 
over the last few years, to have had many 
changes, are not the subjects of any peculiar 
law ; those who seem, as we look back over the 
same period, to have had no changes, or almost 
none, have escaped the operation of this same 
law only for a season. If any one has built, 
upon the record of a few unbroken years, a the- 
ory of going on thus always, — has whispered 
confidently to himself, as he marked the vicis- 
situdes of others, " I shall never be moved," 
— he is altogether mistaken. For the only 
thing certain in life is that it will change. The 
changes will come to each of us, as they have 
already come and are coming to so many of us. 
The firmest home that ever was built must be 



102 



THE MINISTRY OF CHANGES. 



shaken some time : the dearest circle that ever 
was formed must be broken some time ; the 
strongest health that ever was given must fail 
some time ; the most precious work that ever 
was done must end some time. You cannot 
keep it out by love, by will, by law, by strata- 
gem, by prayer. Life is change, — death is 
change. Only One can say, " I change not," 
and He is the Lord. 1 

What, then, is the meaning, what is the min- 
istry, of our changes, these which are coming 
to us now, — to some slowly, to some swiftly, 
— in some homes many small changes, in other 
homes one or two great changes, which them- 
selves have changed all ? I answer, the minis- 
try of changes is in part this : To widen our 
view ; to deepen our humility ; to intensify our 
trust ; to bring us to present action. 

The ministry of changes is to widen our 
view. " There is that scattereth, and yet increas- 
eth." 2 What a wonderful wideness of meaning 
in those words when we apply them to some 
of life's changes ! Here is a home that long 
was unbroken, but now one has gone afar into 
the Paradise of God. Has there been no in- 
creasing from that scattering ? Though life 
is sadder, is it not also wider, — wider in the 

1 Mai. iii. 6. 2 Prov. xi. 24. 



THE MINISTRY OF 'CHANGES. 103 

egion of its affection, wider in the scope of its 
aith, wider in the reach of its hope? Oh, 
ho can tell the number of those whose 
thoughts, whose purpose, whose whole spirit, 
have been immeasurably widened by the disci- 
pline of changes ! How often the shattering of 
a human plan has set a soul free in some wider 
plan of God ! 

The ministry of changes is to deepen our 
humility. To a proud spirit, the intrusive 
absoluteness of many changes is most humiliat- 
ing. There are few things we grow so proud 
of as our power to plan adroitly and to reach 
foreseen conclusions. And when one of God's 
great, calm, resistless plans eomes sweejiing 
silently along like a noiseless wind, and sets 
our little plans aside like wreaths of dust, the 
pride of the natural heart is sorely chastised. 
But did we not need it ? Was our heart like 
the heart of a little child ? Were we in sympa- 
thy, before this discipline, with Him who said : 
" Not My Will, but Thine, be done " ? 1 

The ministry of changes is to intensify our 
trust. Think not God chastises our pride for 
the sake of chastising it, — breaks in upon our 
plans with the great hammer-strokes of His 
changes only to cover us with the dust of 
1 Si. Luke xxii. 42L 



104 THE MINISTRY OF CHANGES. 



humiliation. God's changes look beyond the 
humbling of one's heart to the trust that is 
learned in humility. They only know what 
true calmness is, who, through the contraven- 
tion of cherished plans, and through the humil- 
iation of confident endeavors, and through the 
intrusion of startling changes, have learned the 
infiniteness of God's power, and have placed 
their lives in God's Hand, waiting now for 
direction. 

The ministry of changes is to bring us to 
present action. Now or never ! Much of life's 
sweetest, best opportunity is thus bounded. Is 
there love to be given ? give it now ! Is there 
wrong to be forgiven ? forgive it now ! Is 
there faith to be confessed ? confess it now ! 
Is there work of Christ-like ministry to be 
done ? do it now ! Work on in the To-day, 
for by To-morrow much may have changed, 
and changed forever. Amen. 



VII. 

THE EMBRACE OF GOD. 



VIL 



THE EMBRACE OF GOD. 

" And underneath are the Everlasting Arms." — Deut. 
xxxiii. 27. 

Our theme is, The Embrace of God. Not 
that we may and must take hold of God, but 
that God does take hold of us. Underneath — 
underneath all that makes up for us the activ- 
ity of life ; underneath its faith and its fear ; 
underneath its best work and its poorest work ; 
underneath its fitful courage and its frequent 
dread, — underneath all are the Everlasting 
Arms. The Embrace of God is deeper than 
our depths ; when the Everlasting Arms take 
hold of us, they hold all that we are ; they 
supply all that we are not. 

That we may and must take hold of God, is 
true, yet only half the truth ; that we must 
ever be stretching out the hands of prayer and 
the hands of faith, to lay hold of " the life 
that is life indeed," to touch and handle and 
hold things unseen, is true, yet only half the 



108 



THE EMBRACE OF GOD. 



truth. The stronger half is the Embrace of 
God, and underneath, even underneath our try- 
ing to take hold of God, are the Everlasting 
Arms. The highest form of faith is under- 
standing how to rest in God. The ultimate 
thing in a complete life is not doing but rest- 
ing : there must be doing, and always doing ; 
yet doing is not ultimate, for underneath 
(whether it be doing or suffering) are the Ever- 
lasting Arms. To* feel this is to know our por- 
tion in God through our Lord Jesus Christ. 

There is everything in the present age to 
make us forget this, the best thins: about our 
life. The present age (and no doubt rightly) 
sets a premium upon doing. " What can you 
do ? " " What have you done ? " " What are 
you doing ? " " What are you going to do ? " 
These are the four questions that are the four 
gospels of modern secularism. 

What can you do ? J udge a man by his 
abilities : Can he hold his own ? Can he com- 
pete with his fellows ? 

What have you done ? Judge a man by his 
record : Has he held his own ? Has he given 
the ring of the true metal when struck in the 
fight by the blows of difficulty ? Has he 
revealed power for regular work, and skill for 
emergency ? 



THE EMBRACE OF GOD. 



109 



What are you doing ? Judge a man by his 
occupation : Is his work good ? Is he doing 
high-class service ? Is he industrious ? 

What are you going to do ? Judge a man 
by his plans : Has he foresight ? Is he vis- 
ionary ? Is he ambitious ? 

These are the four gospels of modern secu- 
larism. Each sets a premium upon doing ; and 
in many things it is wise and safe to set a 
premium on doing, and to judge men by their 
ability, by their record, by their occupation, 
and by their plans. If good work is to be well 
done, doers have to be sifted by stern tests. 

And quite right, too, that in the Christian 
life a premium should be set on doing, as 
most certainly is the case to-day. Never has 
that bugle-call, which summons us to our work, 
rung more loudly through the Church than 
it rings to-day. Imperatively does Christ, the 
Great Worker, say, " Follow Me ; " and most 
enthusiastically is His command echoed by His 
under-ofncers down the ranks. Work is 
preached from all pulpits ; work is animating 
all Christian bodies, and cementing the alliance 
of denominations ; work, in new forms, is at- 
tracting new workers who were never workers 
before. I sometimes ask myself, Is work being 
deified just now ? Is the Church making this 



110 



THE EMBRACE OF GOD. 



age the apotheosis of work ? For it is com- 
mended as a cure for almost all spiritual ills. 
It is urged as a remedy for faltering faith : if 
your mind is tormented with doubts, just throw 
yourself into work and your doubts will leave 
you. It is urged as a protection against sin : 
if you are tempted of the Devil, just fill your 
life with work, and you will have no time 
left to attend to his solicitations. It is com- 
mended as a relief from sorrow : if you are 
greatly afflicted, do not remain in morbid in- 
activity ; work, and in doing for others you 
shall be lifted above yourself. All true ! All 
true ! Nobly, blessedly true. Christ's truth, 
every word of it. Yet, after all, only half the 
truth, and not enough without the other half. 
Work seems all-sufficient because there is so 
much of it, and of such noble kinds. " Doing " 
seems everything, because there are so many 
doing, and doing with all their might, for love 
of the Lord Jesus. But work is not all-suffi- 
cient, and doing is not everything ; and many 
who work, work with heavy hearts, and do 
with trembling and uncertain spirit, needing 
and craving more than work to save them from 
their fears, — more than doing to make them 
brave. Work cannot do everything for us, for 
the reason that our work is so imperfect, and 



THE EMBRACE OF GOD. Ill 



that it does not meet all of our needs. Doing* 
— the stretching out of our hands to take hold 
of God — is not enough for us, for the reason 
there are so many things in our life, behind us 
and before us, which we cannot touch with our 
hands, nor see with our eyes. What we do 
need, beyond our doing, beyond our taking 
hold of God, is to feel that God has taken 
hold of us, and underneath are the Everlasting 
Arms. Our life is, so full of startling wideness, 
of terrifying indefiniteness, of large incomplete- 
ness, the only one thing that can go under its 
depth, and that can encircle its breadth, and 
that can hold up all strongly together, is the 
Embrace of God ! 

The Everlasting Arms ! What conceptions 
of God in relation to our lives are here given 
to us ? To speak of the Arms of God is not 
to run any risk of narrowing or materializing 
our thought of God by the littleness of human 
ideas. It is a principle of inspired language, 
which we may follow through the whole Bible, 
to speak of the attributes of God by illustra- 
tions drawn from human life and human 
things. We do not infer at all from this 
that God is only such an one as ourselves, 
but we use these human illustrations by look- 
ing through them to bring God near to our 



112 



THE EMBRACE OF GOD. 



power of thought, as the astronomer uses on 
earth his telescope to bring the stars near to 
his power of vision. See how these telescopes 
are mounted in the observatory of the Word : 
" Like as a father pitieth his children, so the 
Lord pitieth them that fear Him." 1 How near 
to our power of thought that brings God's com- 
passion. " As one whom his mother comforteth, 
so will I comfort you." 2 What a strong lens 
that is ! So, also, parts and features of the 
body are freely used to interpret, according to 
the power of our minds, the transcendent attri- 
butes of God. So, the Eyes of God, 3 the Mouth 
of God, 4 the Voice of God, 5 the Breath of God, 6 
the Hand of God, 7 the Feet of God, 8 are all of 
them inspired illustrations of Divine attributes, 
which for the spiritual mind have no tendency 
to materialize the thought of God, but to bring 
the glorious realities of His Being within the 
immediate range of our powers of feeling and 
of faith. And thus we are told to-day, " in 
the blessing wherewith Moses the man of God 
blessed the children of Israel before his death," 
of the Everlasting Arms. Were there time for 

1 Ps. ciii. 13. 2 Isa. lxvi. 13. 

3 Ps. xxxiii. 18. 4 St Matt. iv. 4. 

5 Ps. xxix. 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9. 6 Job. xxxiii. 4. 

7 Isa. xxvi. 11. 8 Eph. i. 22. 



THE EMBRACE OF GOD. 



113 



such a study, it would be a precious thing to 
take this oft-repeated thought of the Arm or 
the Arms of God, and trace out its meaning 
through the many Scriptures wherein it appears. 
We should find out how the writers of Israel 
loved to use that strong word, 66 the stretched- 
out Arm," 1 as a sign of God's active help ex- 
tended to His own people. We should find Hez- 
ekiah strengthening his people's heart against 
the invading Assyrian with this grand cry : 
" With him is an arm of flesh, but with us is 
the Lord our God to help us and to fight our 
battles." 2 We should find the mystic whirl- 
wind voice saying reprovingly to Job, " Hast 
thou an arm like God?" 3 and the Psalmist 
singing joyfully : " Thou hast with thine Arm 
redeemed Thy people," 4 " Thou hast scattered 
Thine enemies with Thy Strong Arm." 5 " His 
Eight Hand and His Holy Arm hath gotten 
Him the victory," 6 and in the Song of Solo- 
mon this wonderful prayer : " Set me as a seal 
upon Thine Arm, for love is strong as death." 1 
And Isaiah is full of this thought. Now he 
prays : " Be Thou their Arm every morning ; 

1 Ex. vi. 6 ; Deut. iv. 34 ; 2 Chron. vi. 32 ; Ezek. xx, 33. 

2 2 Chrou, xxxii. 8. 8 Job. xl. 9. 

4 Ps. lxxvii. 15. 5 Ps. lxxxix. 10. 

6 Ps. xcviii. 1« 7 Cant. viii. 6, 



114 



THE EMBRACE OF GOD. 



our salvation also in the time of trouble." 1 
Now he asks sadly : " To whom is the Arm of 
the Lord revealed ? " 2 Now he speaks in the 
words of Jehovah : " Mine Arms shall judge the 
people, and on mine Arm shall they trust." 3 
And now he utters that most tender Messianic 
prophecy : " He shall gather the lambs with His 
Arm and carry them in His Bosom." 4 And 
when we turn from these few examples to the 
noble assurance given by Moses, " The Eternal 
God is thy Refuge, and underneath are the 
Everlasting Arms," we feel that the thought of 
the Arms of God is very full of meaning, that 
it gives us a most soul-restoring idea of the 
enfolding of our life in the Embrace of the 
Divine Life ; of the strength of God's Embrace ; 
of the protection of God's Embrace ; of the 
permanence of God's Embrace. 

The first thing that appeals to us is the 
strength of those Everlasting Arms : " Trust 
ye in the Lord forever, for in the Lord Jeho- 
vah is everlasting strength." 6 Many of us 
are so constituted that we depend upon the 
strength of some other life for our strength. 
We feel our need, in the earthly companion- 



1 Isa. xxxiii. 2. 
3 Isa. li. 5. 
5 Isa. xxvi. 4. 



2 Isa. liii. 1. 
4 Isa. xl. 11. 



THE EMBRACE OF GOD. 



115 



ship, of a strong* arm to lean upon. We search 
the countenance of another to see if it is calm 
or anxious ; we probe the thought of another 
to find if it is still brave, and so long as we 
find strength there we can be strong. Strength 
is mysteriously communicable. Some, have 
power by a word, by a look, by a touch of 
the hand, to say to another, " Receive thou 
strength." All such, whether giving or re- 
ceiving strength in present earthly companion- 
ship, can feel the strength of these Everlasting 
Arms. And who can more truly feel it than 
those from whom the strong earthly arm has 
been or is soon to be withdrawn ? The in- 
tenser sense of dependence prepares one to 
appreciate the strength of these Everlasting 
Arms. 

The next thing that appeals to us is the 
protection afforded by these Everlasting Arms, 
to all who are in their Embrace. " Hold Thou 
me up, and I shall be safe." 1 Life is danger- 
ous, life is untried, life is menaced by evil. 
" Hold Thou me up, and I shall be safe." It 
is a glorious thought, that perfect safety within 
the Embrace of God. " Thou hast scattered 
Thine enemies with Thy strong Arm ; Thou 
hast with Thine Arm redeemed Thy people." 2 

1 Ps. cxix. 117. 2 Ps. lxxxix. 10 ; lxxvii. 15. 



116 



THE EMBRACE OF GOD. 



Have not moments come to you when the 
sense of defencelessness has overwhelmed you? 
On the verge of new undertaking's, whose re- 
sults are deeply hidden from you ; or entrusted 
with responsibilities where mistake may mean 
ruin ; or bereft of counsellors on whose guid- 
ance you have been wont to depend ; or 
plunged in peril where human aid is unavail- 
ing, — how shattering is the thought of your 
defencelessness ! Yet in such a moment, to one 
who believes, there may be born within the soul 
a consciousness, before unknown, of the protec- 
tion of those Everlasting Arms, — 

" And hearts are brave again, 
And arms are strong." 

The next thing that appeals to us is the per- 
manence, both for strength and for protection, 
of those Everlasting Arms. " I will never leave 
thee nor forsake thee." 1 How those words 
shine on ahead of us as we go, — a " search- 
light," cutting through the fog, not revealing 
the path in the sea, but making the air light ! 
The everlastingness of those strong protecting 
Arms is the answer to the prayer, " Thou 
Who changest not, abide with me." 

One thought beyond this : " Underneath 

1 Heb. xiii. 5. 



THE EMBRACE OF GOD. 



117 



are the Everlasting Arms." I rejoice in that 
" underneath." It has finality in it. It has ul- 
timateness in it. It touches bottom, — deeper 
than the depths. Arthur Hallam said : " Pain 
is the deepest thing we have in our nature." 1 
And it is true. Pain is the deepest thing we 
have in our nature ; but there is something 
deeper than pain, for there is something deeper 
than our nature : " Underneath are the Ever- 
lasting Arms." And, as we close this sermon, 
I want to show you how this underneath 
thought helps our faith, how it helps our 
work, how it helps our courage. 

How does it help our faith? Underneath 
our faith are the Everlasting Arms of God's 
covenant love in Christ. What must I do to 
be saved? Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, 
and thou shalt be saved. Now what is the 
strong thing here, — my faith or God's cove- 
nant, "Thou shalt be saved"? Ah! the 
strength is in the Everlasting Arms of that 
covenant of Eternal Love which are under me 
in the work of Christ. My faith is a most 
weak, unsteady force. There are times when it 
grows stronger and brighter under the power 
of favorable influences, when I see clearly my 
part in the sacrifice of the Redeemer, and lay 

1 Remains in Verse and Prose of Arthur Henry Hallam, p. 281. 



118 



THE EMBRACE OF GOD. 



hold of His Cross with strong hands. But 
there are other times when the power of faith 
languishes, when the faults and follies of my 
weaker nature hinder its free exercise, and 
when discouragement dims its clearness. Does 
my salvation depend on my faith keeping up 
to a certain pitch of intensity? If so, where 
am I before God to-day, and where is my 
hope ? Is the strength of my faith my ref- 
uge ? It is not so. " The Eternal God is thy 
Refuge, and underneath are the Everlasting 
Arms." The great thing is, not the strength 
with which you have taken hold of God, but 
the strength with which God has taken hold of 
you, to hold p you eternally in the Everlasting 
Arms of His covenant love revealed in Christ. 
The most trembling, weeping, uncertain, trou- 
bled faith, if only it be real as far as it goes, 
is just as truly the gateway of salvation, to the 
soul that has it, as is the triumphant, cloudless, 
untroubled faith of the greatest apostle, for 
the measure of faith in neither case is the 
ground of salvation. The ground of salvation 
for both alike, the ultimate fact, is that under- 
neath the faith, be it weaker or stronger, are 
the Everlasting Arms of the Covenant of the 
Cross. If this were realized more clearly than 
it is, what a magnificent help it would be to 



THE EMBRACE OF GOD. 



119 



the faith of all of us ! We should cease feel- 
ing the pulse of our spiritual emotions, and 
should rest in the covenant of Calvary : and no 
man can feel that the everlasting, outstretched 
Arms of the dying Saviour are the support 
beneath his life without being quickened into 
a strong faith, and moved by a desire for holi- 
ness. 

Underneath are the Everlasting Arms ! How 
does this help our work ? Underneath our 
imperfect work are the Everlasting Arms of 
Christ's perfect work. Christ's work sanctifies 
and makes acceptable in God's sight all work 
wrought, however imperfectly, in His Name. 
Christ's work gathers and holds our imperfect 
efforts in the embrace of a Divine acceptance. 
a Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the 
least of these my brethren, ye have done it 
unto Me." 1 " Unto Me " — those two words 
are the Everlasting Arms that gather and bind 
our life work, and bear it up acceptably before 
the Throne. Unto Me ! Take away those 
words and our life becomes an unbound sheaf ; 
it falls apart into scattered, frail, faulty, often 
futile efforts. Judged in themselves alone by 
the awful standard of God's Perfection, our 
miserable attempts at service fill us with shame. 

1 St. Matt. xxv. 40. 



120 



THE EMBRACE OF GOD. 



But is this our destiny, to go wearily on, our 
life marked behind us by the broken efforts 
that have fallen to the ground? Christian 
brother, this is not our destiny. No sincere 
work, however faulty, falls to the ground, for 
underneath are the Everlasting Arms, — those 
gracious, compassionate, gathering, and bind- 
ing Arms — " Unto Me " — wherewith Christ 
gathers our work, enfolds it in His Own, pre- 
sents it with His Own. Who that believes this 
but must often work with a less uncertain 
spirit, knowing that his labor in the Lord is 
not in vain ; not that we have taken hold of 
God by our work, but that God has taken hold 
of our work with the Everlasting Arms ? 

Underneath are the Everlasting Arms ! How 
does this help our courage ? Underneath our 
failing heart are the Everlasting Arms of the 
Eeserve Power in God. Can any one be truly 
strong who has not been perfectly weak? I 
mean, can any one say with truth that he 
knows something of the Reserve Power of 
those Everlasting Arms until, under the pres- 
sure of temptation, or of care, or of sorrow, he 
has felt the life giving way beneath him, — 
the flesh and the heart failing? But if you 
have come to that point where you felt life 
giving way under you, and if at that point you, 



THE EMBRACE OF GOD. 



121 



with a perfect consciousness of your entire 
weakness, did throw the whole weight of your 
heavy heart upon God, then you may have 
known something of the Reserve Power of 
those Everlasting Arms that caught you and 
held you, and made you stronger than the 
strong. Courage? It is a pretty thing to 
look at when the bright, unburdened soul 
speaks out of the fearless eyes which never 
y$ were dimmed by life's real sorrows ; it is 
a sweet, and spring-like thing to see the impas- 
sioned courage of the boyhood that has had no 
reason yet to doubt itself. But it is a diviner 
thing to see the New Transfiguring Courage 
that is found in that hour when the soul, 
in utter weakness, flings itself on the Reserve 
Power of those Everlasting Arms, and grows 
stronger than the strong. These are the 
strength-givers ; these are they who have grace 
to make others brave, who themselves out of 
weakness were made strong in the Embrace of 
God. Amen. 



VIII. 

THE PEESPECTIVE OF RIGHT LIVING. 



VIII. 



THE PEESPECTIVE OF EIGHT LIVING. 

" And he looked up, and said : I see men as trees, walking." 
—St. Mark viii. 23. 

Here was a case for an oculist. When Ches- 
elden, the great English eye-surgeon, first gave 
sight to a young man born blind, by an opera- 
tion celebrated alike in the annals of surgery 
and psychology, the patient is said to have 
declared that all objects, near and distant, 
seemed to touch his eyes. He had no sense 
of distance, no perception of relations, no idea 
of perspective, no conception of an horizon. 1 
This, substantially, was the case of the man 
brought to Christ at Bethsaida, for the healing 
of blindness. Anticipating, I doubt not, the 
confusion which would attend the first effort 
of vision, the Saviour, before operating upon 
the man, takes him by the hand and leads him 
oat of the town into the quieter country-side, 
where, possibly, the only spectators of the cure 

1 Vide Weekly London Times, June 13, 1890, p. 12. 



126 THE PERSPECTIVE OF RIGHT LIVING. 



would be the disciples. Then, by a touch, He 
breaks the spell of blindness, and summons 
this child of involuntary darkness to make his 
first report of light. Christ laid His hands 
upon him and asked him : " Seest thou aught ? " 
The man looked up, endeavored in the first be- 
wildered exercise of a new sense to grasp the 
situation, and replied : " I see men as trees, 
walking." His reply reminds us of Chesel- 
den's patient. He saw ; but he saw not things 
in right relations ; the near and the distant, 
the great and the small were all alike to him. 
Everything seemed to touch his eyes. He had 
not as yet acquired that sense of distance, that 
sense of perspective which is in fact the result 
of experience, although we may think of it as 
innate. I am seated upon my piazza on a sum- 
mer day. Before me is a table. On the table 
is a book. On the same plane as the table my 
eye beholds the bright blue sea. On the sea 
is a great sloop-yacht with her clouds of snowy 
canvas. I stretch out my hand to touch the 
book. Why do I not stretch out my hand to 
touch the yacht, which is just beyond the book 
in the plane of vision? Because experience 
has taught my eyes the sense of perspective, of 
nearness and of distance, of relative sizes and 
positions ; and I know the book is small and 



THE PERSPECTIVE OF RIGHT LIVING. 127 



is near ; and although the yacht appears just 
beyond the book and of the same size as the 
book, the acquired sense of perspective assures 
me the yacht is large and is far away. 

This man, who at the bidding of that Divine 
Oculist, Jesus Christ, made his first effort of 
vision, revealed instantly that the sense of per- 
spective is not innate, but is acquired. He 
declared, " I see men as trees, walking." By 
this he meant that he detected objects, but not 
their relations. Men looked like trees, trees 
like men. The Lord at his side and the syca- 
more in the meadow were simply two discerni- 
ble objects, equally near, of equal size. I sup- 
pose this is the way the world looks to a baby 
when first it opens its eyes. The form of its 
father is as tall as the elm-tree, and the canopy 
of its crib is as high as the sky ; the night- 
light is as bright as the sun, and the mother's 
hymn is as loud as the noise of trumpets. Day 
by day, month by month, it acquires the sense 
of relativeness, in sights, in sounds ; the per- 
spective of the eye, the perspective of the ear. 
If our Lord had done nothing further for the 
man beyond enabling him to make this first 
effort of vision wherein he saw men as trees 
walking, the man, proceeding along the ordi- 
nary path of human experience, could pain- 



128 THE PERSPECTIVE OF RIGHT LIVING. 



fully and perilously have succeeded ultimately 
in learning the relations of objects to one an- 
other ; he could have acquired his perspective. 
Like a baby learning the uses of eyes, grad- 
ually he would have found out that trees are 
taller than men ; that a rod is shorter than a 
mile ; that the sky is higher than a roof. But 
we are all glad to learn that Jesus by His own 
personal power kindly enabled this man to an- 
ticipate the slow results of experience ; gave 
him not only vision, but the sense of perspec- 
tive ; for we read : " Then again He laid His 
hands upon his eyes ; and he looked steadfastly 
and was restored, and saw all things clearly." 1 
It would be difficult, I think, to give even a 
few moments of thought to this incident, with- 
out perceiving that in it we have a suggestion 
concerning life of even more than ordinary 
power. It seems hardly possible to think of 
the dim, bewildered way in which the man be- 
gan to use his eyes, of the confusion of men and 
trees, of the lack of altitude, the lack of spa- 
cing, the lack of scale, and not to think how we, 
when we began to look on life, may have seen 
it in the same dim, bewildered way, without 
altitude, without spacing, without scale, with- 
out perspective. It seems hardly possible to 

1 Revised Version. 



THE PERSPECTIVE OF RIGHT LIVING. 129 



think of Jesus giving this man his perspective ; 
setting things right before his eyes ; putting 
objects in relation, and saving him a thousand 
mortifications, miscalculations, blows and falls, 
— and not to think that Jesus has power to 
give us the perspective of right living, — to set 
things right before our eyes ; to set the great 
sun-crowned mountains of hope and the sky- 
spaces of glory above the roadside bushes and 
above the dusty figures of men. 

The perspective of right living ! It is of 
this I would speak to-day, if God shall give 
me utterance. First, of the tendency to false 
perspective. Second, of the evils of false per- 
spective. Third, of the Touch that makes all 
things clear. 

" I see men as trees, walking." The ten- 
dency to false perspective is revealed in the first 
effort of vision. In his first report of light, 
the man ingenuously reports that he has every- 
thing to learn. Such seeing is hardly an ad- 
vance on blindness. Such light is darkness. 
To detect objects without sense of relative size 
and place is to multiply, not to abate, the perils 
of existence. The blind man tapping warily 
along the pavement is safer than he who sees 
the vehicles, but knows not if they be far or 
near. Vision without true perspective is open- 



130 THE PERSPECTIVE OF EIGHT LIVING. 



eyed blindness. Yet we tend to this when we 
begin to look upon life. Each in his own way, 
and after his own kind, tends to false perspec- 
tive, and sees men as trees walking. 

" I see men as trees, walking." To begin by 
citing an obvious example. Some tend to false 
perspective in the care of health. " I believe 
in the sanity of the body " is not a clause from 
the Apostles' Creed, but is worthy to be there. 
A man has his life-work : a woman has hers. 
The glory of the calling and the strength of 
the called were meant to correspond. " As 
thy days so shall thy strength be," 1 means (as 
much as anything) health for a life-work. Yet 
nothing is more likely, than health, to stand in 
false perspective at the beginning of life. It 
is offered up ruthlessly as fuel to feed the fires 
of indulgence. It is diminished by the play- 
ful bravado of imprudence ; by deficient sani- 
tation of the body ; by late and irregular hours ; 
by foolish and indefensible habits. Fashion 
levies a pitiless and utterly exorbitant tax upon 
the vitality of the young, and self-indulgence 
cooperates with her to set the whole subject of 
health in false perspective. There are times 
when my sense of this false perspective prevail- 
ing among the young on the subject of health 

1 Deut. xxxiii. 25. 



THE PERSPECTIVE OF RIGHT LIVING. 131 



becomes so intense, it seems as if it would drag 
me from my pulpit and send me forth as an 
evangelist to schools and colleges, to preach a 
larger doctrine of life to boys and girls, to 
preach the glory and the strain of a man's life- 
work, and of a woman's life-work ; to preach 
that fatherhood need not be a crushing care, 
nor motherhood a shattering torture ; to plead 
for youth, as Elisha prayed for the young man 
in the vale of Dothan : " Open his eyes, that 
he may see ; " 1 to sweep away the clouds of 
tobacco smoke from the brains of boys, to stop 
incipient drinking ; to make girls content with 
simpler living; to set health in true perspec- 
tive before it has been sold for pleasure. 

" I see men as trees, walking." So some 
tend to false perspective in mental culture. It 
is the fashion of this age to read books. But 
mental culture is no more measured by the 
number of books one reads, than health is 
measured by the number of pounds one weighs. 
Mental culture is the process of thought-life. 
Thought gives perspective to knowledge. To 
devour books presupposes no certain thought- 
life. In the mass of rapidly acquired informa- 
tion there may be no altitude, no spacing, no 
scale. The near and the distant, the great and 

1 2 Kings vi. 17. 



132 THE PERSPECTIVE OF RIGHT LIVING. 



the petty, may look alike — men as trees walk- 
ing. Thought, and only thought, gives per- 
spective to knowledge : places the data of infor- 
mation in right relations, informs the mind 
with the sense of greatness, invests mental 
judgments with dignity, and pervades charac- 
ter with calm and beauteous self-confidence. 
In the crowded life which many of us are com- 
pelled to live, the great foe of thought is inci- 
dent, perpetual, ubiquitous incident ; something 
to happen every hour. Incident is in the tower- 
ing majority. Its tendency is to throw thought 
into false perspective, to minimize meditation, 
thus to pauperize the mind. Is there anything 
in the universe of God more beautiful, more 
desirable, than a thoughtful mind, in which, 
as on the face of some magnificent landscape, 
the lines of pure perspective are drawn by the 
Hand of God ; where the elements of knowledge 
stand in right relations ; where the foreground 
detail neither hides nor belittles the sky-line 
and the peaks that pierce the blue. 

" I see men as trees, walking." So some 
tend to false perspective in the moral life. To 
do evil that good may come is the logic of the 
devil. In deliberative assemblies, occasions 
sometimes arise calling for unusual methods of 
procedure ; and where the occasion is supposed 



THE PERSPECTIVE OF RIGHT LIVING. 133 



to justify, the unusual procedure is allowed, 
under what is called " a suspension of the 
rules." In the life of men, how often is the 
moral law violated under (what a man per- 
suades himself to believe) is a justifiable sus- 
pension of the rules. The opportunities of 
gain are very unusual at the moment, or the 
stringency of a man's finances is exceptionally 
severe, or the banter and ridicule of companions 
is peculiarly trying, or the seducing witchery 
of temptation is supremely potent ; the man 
halts, hesitates, calls it a justifiable emergency, 
and suspends the rules. God help him ! What 
he does he knows not now, but he shall know 
hereafter. At the moment, in the false per- 
spective, he sees men as trees, walking ; all 
things look about alike, — - God like the devil, 
wrong like right. But afterward, oh, after- 
ward ! when the light has come, not like the 
broad, benignant sunrise, but like the sheeted 
lightning bursting in upon the night, in the 
glare of infamous exposure, in the blaze of 
shame, — afterward he shall know that the 
wages of sin is death. 

" I see men as trees, walking." So some tend 
to false perspective in the spiritual life. Once, 
in the borders of Judsea, beyond Jordan, there 
came to Christ a young man of wealth, who 



134 THE PERSPECTIVE OF RIGHT LIVING. 



professed to desire the spiritual life. 1 He asked 
that its principles might be explained to him. 
Christ pointed out to him that the central 
principle of spiritual life is the willingness to 
renounce self and self-chosen good, for the 
sake of Jesus. To the young man's eyes, full 
of false perspective, such a principle dealt a 
death-blow at the spiritual life. How could 
renunciation ever be more to a man than pos- 
session? How could giving up for Jesus' sake 
ever be chosen and loved better than having 
for one's own sake ? He could not see it. And 
he went away sorrowful, for he had great pos- 
sessions. Many more since his day have failed 
to see it. That life in the fellowship of the 
Son of God, where sacrifice becomes a joy, and 
self-renunciation for His sake the most glad- 
dening form of self-expression ; that spiritual 
life where the majesty and glory of things un- 
seen is far more satisfying than physical abun- 
dance, that life is an enigma to many this day. 
They cannot see the charm of it. They can- 
not imagine wherein it becomes a successful 
rival with the world, for the affections and the 
enthusiasms of a human heart. They cannot 
conceive how one still hour with Jesus may be 
more enthralling with delight than the most 

1 St. Matt. xix. 16-26. 



THE PERSPECTIVE OF RIGHT LIVING. 135 



sumptuous pageant of the world. They cannot 
see it. No ! nor will they, till that Touch 
which makes all things clear is laid on their 
eyes as it has been laid on some of us. Till 
then life will be viewed in false perspective ; 
the things that are seen and temporal will look 
larger and grander and more captivating than 
the things that are not seen and are eternal; 
the trees and the men massed in the fore- 
ground will block the sky-line. Only the Touch 
of Jesus Christ can set it right. 

Here, then, we have before us some examples 
of tendency to false perspective. In matters 
of health, of mental culture, of moral life and 
of spiritual life, we see the possibility of mis- 
taken view | of that open-eyed blindness which 
perceives things without being able to perceive 
their relations. Is it necessary for me to say 
more than a few words concerning the evils 
of false perspective ? We all know how many 
forms of physical suffering are traced by the 
skill of modern physicians to some defect in 
the eyes ; till we grow almost to feel that if the 
eyes are right, all is right. It seems as if mod- 
ern oculists, by their marvellous demonstrations 
of the influence of vision upon other bodily 
functions, are throwing new significance into 
Christ's words : " If thine eye be single, thy 



136 THE PERSPECTIVE OF RIGHT LIVING. 



whole body shall be full of light ; but if thine 
eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of 
darkness." 1 The evils of false perspective, 
the sad consequences upon all the personality, 
following from a mistaken view of the relation 
of things, are as comprehensive as the maladies 
which relate themselves to physical disorders of 
the eye. 

The misappropriation of energy is one of 
the evils of false perspective ; working yourself 
to death for a second-rate prize. I am not 
speaking of man's heritage of toil ; in the sweat 
of his brow he must earn his bread : — 

" Men must work, and women must weep, 
For there 's little to earn, and many to keep ; " 

I am speaking of the work, the thinking, the 
scheming, the strength, that are thrown away 
on second-rate prizes. " Wherefore do ye spend 
money for that which is not bread ; and your 
labor for that which satisfieth not?" 2 It is 
the curse of the false perspective, and the world 
is full of it ; men selling body and soul to the 
devil in order to keep up a false show of wealth 
till they drop into that premature grave, a 
convict's cell ; women scheming to attain that 
which when they have it is not worth the hav- 
ing ; while better things, purer things, things 
1 St. Matt, vi. 22, 23. 2 i sa . Jv> 2 . 



THE PERSPECTIVE OF RIGHT LIVING. 137 



great with immortality, lie mute around them 
unnoticed, uncomprehended, undesired. 

The tyranny of non-essentials is one of the 
evils of false perspective. When they arrested 
Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane, Peter, in 
a fury, draws his sword, strikes into the crowd 
and maims Malchus, cutting off his ear. 1 " Put 
up your sword," says the calm Christ, with a 
touch as he heals the wounded ear ; " To smite 
Malchus is false perspective. I have no quar- 
rel with that poor man ; he knows not what 
he does. I have a greater baptism to be bap- 
tized with ; I have yet a cup to drink which is 
in My Father's Hand ; I must get Me ready 
for that." Christ was too great, He saw too 
far, to live under the tyranny of non-essentials. 
He threw them off gloriously, as a ship throws 
off the spray on either bow. He accepted His 
Own real trials : He faced Gethsemane ; He 
bent to His Cross. He went to Calvary to 
drink the cup of woe ; but in the grand per- 
spective of living He knew what worries He 
might throw aside, and with whom He need 
have no words. Not till His Touch is on our 
eyes can we see to do likewise. Till then, the 
tyranny of non-essentials breaks the spirit of 
men ; petty worries, small confusions, secondary 

1 St. Matt. xxvi. 51, 52. 



138 THE PERSPECTIVE OF RIGHT LIVING. 



attacks, assume exaggerated powers ; the dust 
of the road hides the hills to which it leads. 
The sudden quarrel with Malchus unnerves one 
for patience at the judgment bar of a bitterer 
trial, for majesty and peace in the supreme 
hour of the Cross. Who needs not to pray 
this prayer : " Teach me, Master, to discern 
betwixt small and great in the perspective of 
trial, and let not a wayside brawl break up a 
march to Calvary ! " 

Let me speak, as I close this sermon, of the 
Touch that makes all things clear. " He laid 
His Hands upon him and asked him, 6 Seest 
thou aught ? ' and he looked up and said, 6 1 
see men as trees, walking.' Then again He 
laid His Hands upon his eyes ; and he looked 
steadfastly and was restored, and saw all things 
clearly." That was the Touch that made all 
things clear. Has He laid it on our eyes ? 
Has He given us through His Holy Spirit our 
perspective? How, then, do we look at life? 
Through the principles of true perspective ? 
There are three things you will see in your per- 
spective if His Hands have indeed been laid 
upon your eyes, in the Touch that makes all 
things clear. You will see the difference be- 
tween apparent size and real size ; you will see 
the converging lines ; you will see the vanish- 
ing point. 



THE PERSPECTIVE OF RIGHT LIVING. 139 



You will see the difference between apparent 
size and real size. The things in the fore- 
ground are not the greatest of all ; the trees 
and the men have apparent size, looming up 
close before you ; but the lines that run back 
into the picture suggest to you now larger and 
larger things; the spaces of life, the scale of 
the mountains, the shore of the sea. 

You will see the converging lines. As the 
lines move on in the picture, they draw to- 
gether. Is this, then, the perspective of liv- 
ing, to realize that the lines of things are not 
parallel, running on endlessly side by side ? 
They are converging lines, drawing closer and 
closer together as they move. 

You will see the vanishing point. It is not 
in the picture to be seen, but your mind tells 
you it is there ; a point where all the long con- 
verging lines meet at last to vanish in infinity. 
On and on, then, must be our thought of living ; 
on and on, beneath the Touch that makes all 
things clear. We cannot be stopped in the 
confusion of the foreground ; on and on, in 
thought, in prayer, in hope, in service, till the 
long lines meet where sea and sky are one — 
and vanish in eternity ! Amen. 



IX. 

THE BENEDICTION OF THE RISEN 
LORD. 



IX. 

THE BENEDICTION OF THE EISEN LOKD. 

Preached on Easter Day, 1889. 

" Then came Jesus and stood in the midst, and saith unto 
them, Peace be unto you. Then said J esus to them again, 
Peace be unto you. And after eight days again came Jesus, 
and stood in the midst and said, Peace be unto you/' — St. 
John xx. 19, 21, 26. 

We are to speak of the Benediction of the 
Risen Lord. Sometimes in summer, after a 
three days' storm? there dawns a morning when 
the air is clear as crystal, soft as a child's 
breath, still as heaven. The pitiless east wind 
that tore the trees, that screamed like the night- 
hawk, that lashed the sea into tawny foam ; 
the sheets of rain that travelled on the roaring 
blast, that swelled the streams, that beat at the 
windows ; the low-hanging clouds, over whose 
leaden fronts have swept the interminable 
fringes of flying scud, — - all these have vanished 
at midnight, and with the dawn have come 
beauty, and calmness, and untroubled glory. 
The sea is still, giving back the blue of a 



144 BENEDICTION OF THE RISEN LORD. 



cloudless sky ; the air sparkles with light thrown 
out from the rain-baptism on trees and lawns ; 
and overhead, as through a " sapphire sea," the 
sun " sails like a golden galleon." This mag- 
nificent contrast in nature is no unworthy type 
of that majestic and consoling tranquillity with 
which the Eesurrection morning dawns out of 
the awful strife, the unimaginable sorrow, the 
enormous gloom, surrounding the Cross and 
Grave of Jesus Christ. 

Reflect for a moment upon the concentrated 
violence of pain, confusion, ignominy, horror 
and destruction which charged the hours from 
Gethsemane to the Entombment. Remember 
the Agony and Bloody Sweat ; remember the 
hideous betrayal by an apostle ; remember the 
ignominy of those investigations pursued be- 
fore the ecclesiastical and the civil tribunals. 
Remember the mockery and the castigation ; 
remember the roar of that cry of hatred, 
" Crucify Him ! Crucify Him ! " remember the 
deathly march to Calvary ; remember the shock 
and tension when the cross was uplifted ; re- 
member the ferocious confusion that raged 
about Him as He was slowly dying ; remember 
the darkness and the earthquake ; remember 
the Voice that issued from that ghastly gloom, 
carrying up to God a message God only could 



BENEDICTION OF THE RISEN LORD. 145 



interpret : " My God, My God, why hast Thou 
forsaken Me ? " Then, turning from that " hor- 
rible tempest " of strife and sorrow and gloom, 
look upon the morning of beauty and calmness 
amidst which Jesus enters on His Resurrection 
Life. From the moment of His Resurrection, 
strife, pain, pressure, agony, confusion have 
no power over Him. Silently as the morning 
climbs the summer sky, He moves from place 
to place ; gentle and radiant as sunlight is His 
Presence, W4io lately was bowed by the tra- 
vail of His Soul ; and when He speaks, His first 
words to the believing circle strike the keynote 
of all He would do for us, and be in us, and 
bring to us evermore ; the Benediction of the 
Risen Lord : " Peace be unto you." 

Three times within the octave of Easter Day 
did He pronounce that Benediction, as though 
He would make clear at the very outset, to the 
believing Church, that the Risen Lord longs 
to bring and to keep peace in these hearts 
of ours, however fierce the strife, however 
long the warfare, through which we must go. 
" The first day of the week came Jesus, and 
stood in the midst and saith unto them, Peace 
be unto you. Then said Jesus to them again, 
Peace be unto you ; and after eight days again 
came Jesus, and stood in the midst and said 
unto them, Peace be unto you." 



146 BENEDICTION OF THE RISEN LORD. 



Each time He uttered that Benediction, He 
threw into it a new meaning by combining 
with it some gracious act or word* The first 
time we read, " Jesus stood in the midst and 
said unto them, Peace be unto you. And when 
He had so said, He shewed unto them His 
Hands and His Side." Thus He connects His 
Benediction of peace with His Own sufferings, 
reminding: us that the chastisement of our 
peace is upon Him, and by His stripes we are 
healed. Peace, true peace, is for tnose to whom 
the meaning of the sufferings of Jesus is dis- 
closed ; for those to whom He has shown His 
Hands and His Side. 

The second time we read : " Then said J esus 
to them again, Peace be unto you : as My 
Father hath sent Me, even so send I you. And 
when He had said this, He breathed on them 
and said, Keceive ye the Holy Ghost." Thus 
He connects His Benediction of peace with 
His gift of the Holy Spirit, Who alone can 
make peace and keep peace in our hearts amid 
the disquietudes, disappointments, and bereave- 
ments of this life. He not only bids us be at 
peace, but He imparts to us that Holy Com- 
forter Who is the Author of peace. " He 
breathed on them and said, Eeceive ye the 
Holy Ghost," 



BENEDICTION OF THE RISEN LORD. 147 



The third time we read : " After eight days 
again came Jesus, and stood in the midst and 
said, Peace be unto you. Then said He to 
Thomas, Keach hither thy finger and behold 
My Hands, and reach hither thy hand and 
thrust it into My Side, and be not faithless but 
believing." Thus He connects His Benediction 
of peace with an appeal to our faith. He in- 
vites us, in our trouble, in our anxiety, and in 
our tension, to draw very near to Him, to lay 
our hand in His wounded Hand ; to surrender 
our minds to Him with the trustful simplicity 
of little children ; to find peace in believing. 
Thus, attended by the reference to His Own 
sufferings, by the offer of His Holy Spirit, and 
by the affectionate appeal to our faith, the first 
words of the Risen Saviour to His believing 
Church come to us. 

The first words of our risen friends ! How 
eagerly we shall listen to them when, for each 
one of us in turn who have watched by the 
bedsides of our beloved, " earth breaks up and 
heaven expands ; " and we, treading the gate- 
way of Paradise, are met and welcomed by those 
who have gone before us ! With what passion- 
ate eagerness of attention we strain our ears to 
catch the last broken, failing utterances of the 
dying; how our very senses seem sharpened 



148 BENEDICTION OF THE RISEN LORD. 



into sevenfold keenness as we bend over those 
stricken lips whispering their farewells ; and 
when the murmuring grows inarticulate, and 
the speaking eyes can alone utter the love mes- 
sage, how breathlessly we wait for one more 
possible word which never comes ! And as the 
years go by, how we repeat to ourselves the 
last dear, imperishable words ; how we summon 
our faithful memory to recall the last glowing 
look of affection ! But if we thus prize the 
last words of dying friends, shall we not be 
yet more glad to hear the first words of risen 
friends when we meet them again in Paradise ? 
Think of the experiences they are having, while 
we have lived on without them ; think of the 
companionship they are having with the true- 
hearted and the holy on high ; think of the 
splendors they are seeing, before the throne of 
God and of the Lamb ; think of the thoughts 
they are thinking about us ! What will their 
first words of greeting be ? Which of all their 
bright experiences will they want us first to 
share ? 

Let us remember that all the wonderful sig- 
nificance and affection and heavenly joy, which 
we involuntarily associate with the first words 
of our risen friends, we may associate with the 
Benedictions of the Risen Lord. They are to 



BENEDICTION OF THE RISEN LORD. 149 



us believers the first words of our Risen Friend. 
They are the words with which He breaks 
the silence of the grave. " Peace be unto 
you ! Peace be unto you ! Peace be unto 
you ! " A threefold prayer for our peace. 

It is good for us, my brethren, whose lot it 
is to dwell in this exciting and fatiguing age, 
to remember on this Easter morning that the 
first words of our Risen Friend are a Benedic- 
tion of peace. For I fear that you as well as 
I, who are in the thick of the fight, who feel 
the startling rapidity of changes, who are sub- 
ject to that high tension of mind and spirit 
characteristic of these times, — I fear that you 
and I are tempted sometimes to ask, Is there 
any peace ? Does that white dove still brood 
over any heart, or is the whole world g^yen 
over to anxiety, and toil, and pressure, and 
fear ? It may be that I am only growing 
older, and seeing in my turn what others have 
seen before me ; but certainly I am profoundly 
and continually conscious of the prevailing anx- 
iety, and strain, and multiplication of cares, in 
the lives of those about me, and often I am at 
a loss to find evidence that Christians are tast- 
ing any holy calm and repose of spirit above 
that which is known by others. There are 
undoubtedly forces active in modem life which 



150 BENEDICTION OF THE RISEN LORD. 



tend to destroy our first impressions of the 
possibility of peace. It is beyond question that 
men are generally working with more rapidity 
now than formerly. The machinery of life is 
accelerated. The intelligence of the age is con- 
centrated on this problem, — the maximum of 
results in the minimum of time. It is beyond 
question, too, that interests have multiplied, 
quite as rapidly as the rate of working. The 
rapid working has not increased the seasons 
of leisure, because the bulk of work to do has 
grown with the rate of doing. Such intensity 
has its own brilliant rewards, but, no less, its 
own heavy costs. Pressure has now become a 
second nature to most men, and habitual pres- 
sure, unless there be some Divine counteraction, 
becomes the great antagonist of peace. 

Yet never was it more true than on this 
blessed Easter Day that the great Benediction 
of our Risen Lord is peace. This is His first, 
His great desire for us> He stands in our 
midst and says, " Peace be unto you." He to 
Whom our hearts are open, our desires known, 
and from Whom none of our secrets are hid, 
stands in our midst on this great day of com- 
memoration, looking with the searching Eyes 
of Love into the depths of each life. He knows 
our pressure ; the strain on nerve and brain for 



BENEDICTION OF THE RISEN LORD. 151 



those who are fighting the battle of existence, 
— toiling, for their own sake and for the love 
of dear ones, through opposition and through 
calamity. He knows our care : the burden of 
the interests of others ; the training, guid- 
ing, helping work that must be done and 
done again ; the responsibility of station and 
office, of parental headship, of social account- 
ability. He knows our spiritual struggle : the 
importunity of unsanctified impulses, the hu- 
miliating sting of moral failure ; the exhausting 
aspirations after the Divine knowledge. He 
knows our human sorrow : the pang of sudden 
grief ; the slow heartache of accomplished be- 
reavement; the restless hunger of wounded 
affections ; the burial of reasonable and holy 
hopes. All these the Eiseii Saviour knows : yet, 
as He stands in our midst, His first words are, 
" Peace be unto you." Christ Who died for us 
would not mock us. He would not say to us, 
" Peace, peace, when there is no peace." 1 The 
Benediction of the Risen Lord must point to a 
peace which for the Christian is attainable and 
maintainable amidst the actual conditions which 
make up life. 

If this be so, we know then that the peace 
which Christ wishes for us in His Easter Bene- 
diction is not the peace which comes from the 

1 Jer. vi. 14. 



152 BENEDICTION OF THE RISEN LORD. 



absence of care. How impracticable would such 
a wish be ! Who can live at all, and live 
without care, unless it be the most selfish and 
gross of lives ? Who can have any breadth of 
purpose, any generosity of effort, any depth of 
feeling, without taking on care ? Who that 
has the spirit of a true man, or the spirit of a 
true woman, would ask, even if the request 
could be granted, a life without care ? Every 
relationship that ennobles life brings care with 
it ; and the more holy and vital that relation- 
ship the more care is risked in our assumption 
of it. And we may also be sure that the peace 
which Christ wishes for us in His Easter Bene- 
diction is not the peace which comes from the 
absence of sorrow. For who can escape sor- 
row unless the heart has first been turned to 
marble ? Why should God have placed within 
you that measureless possibility of suffering if 
you are not made to suffer? The absence of 
sorrow ! Think what it would mean ! It would 
mean that you could see your neighbor's home 
desolated, his wife and his child swept from his 
side, without one momentary interruption of 
your own pleasure. It would mean that you 
could see the imploring eyes of your own dying 
child turned upon you without one pang shoot- 
ing through your being. It would mean that 



BENEDICTION OF THE RISEN LORD. 153 



you could see your Saviour perish on the cross 
for your sake without one outburst of contri- 
tion from your stony consciousness. The ab- 
sence of sorrow ? God forbid ! Christ could 
not wish us to have peace like that ; brute- 
peace. Nay, my brethren ! the glory of Christ's 
Easter Benediction is, that it contemplates a 
life such as our life is, with the possibilities of 
care, pressure, bereavement, and pain by which 
we are continually surrounded ; it tells us of a 
peace which one may have in his life when the 
storms of care are raging around him, when 
the goads of pressure are driven into him ; it 
tells of a peace which may flow like a river 
through the deeper depths of consciousness 
when the anguish of bereavement is tearing 
the affections, and when the paroxysms of pain 
are torturing the body. 

What is that peace ? Let us look back to 
the Resurrection Day, and read the deeper 
meanings of the Saviour's Benediction, as with 
each utterance of the words, " Peace be unto 
you," He makes some sign, or speaks some 
word, disclosing His meaning. 

" Peace be unto you ! and when He had so 
said, He showed them His Hands and His 
Side." Our Risen Saviour would have us find 
our peace in remembering His sufferings. In 



154 BENEDICTION OF THE RISEN LORD. 



this assembly, outwardly serene and attentive, 
there may be many persons sorely tried in mind, 
body, or estate. Our own griefs, or the griefs 
of our friends, may weigh upon us so heavily 
that human nature cries out impulsively, " Is it 
right, can it be right, that there should be such 
suffering ?" To us the Saviour answers by 
showing us His Hands and His Side. These 
are the outward symbols of an inward suffering 
such as man has never known. These are the 
outward symbols of an inward suffering so im- 
measurably beyond all that man has suffered, 
that He Who has endured such suffering can 
stand in the fellowship of all who suffer, and 
can yet say, "I have trodden the wine-press 
alone." 1 We ask, Why did He suffer ? " Christ 
also hath once suffered for sins, that He might 
bring us to God." 2 And now day by day, as 
this mysterious necessity of suffering is asserting 
itself in our lives, as in turn one after another 
of these households and of these souls passes 
through its Gethsemane, the Risen Lord comes 
daily, hourly, to His people saying, " Peace be 
unto you. Think not that suffering means 
separation from the love of God. Behold My 
Hands and My Side." 

" And He said unto them again : Peace be 

1 Isa. briii. 3. 2 1 Pet. iii. 18. 



BENEDICTION OF THE RISEN LORD. 155 



unto you ; and when He had said this, He 
breathed on them and said, Receive ye the 
Holy Ghost." Our Risen Saviour would have 
us find our peace through the grace of the Holy 
Comforter. That the Christian may be calm in 
the midst of cares and worries, patient under 
pain, submissive under sorrow, he has more 
power at his command than comes from a 
strong will, or from a naturally patient disposi- 
tion. And where the will is not naturally 
strong, and the disposition is not naturally pa- 
tient, it is not right for us to say that we are at 
a hopeless disadvantage. For the Risen Lord, 
Who speaks the Benediction of peace, sends 
the Author and Agent of peace into our hearts, 
breathing upon us and saying, " Receive ye 
the Holy Ghost." And to-day, in this age of 
haste and pressure and vicissitude, that Holy 
Peacemaker is working in many lives ; and I 
know that in this Easter service there are many 
who feel that their powers of courage, and calm- 
ness, and conquering trust this day are not 
the product of strong human wills and patient 
human dispositions, but are the product of the 
Grace of the Comforter Whom they have re- 
ceived, breathed upon them by the Risen Lord, 
and dwelling now within them; creating an 
inward sanctuary of holy peace and heavenly 



156 BENEDICTION OF THE RISEN LORD. 



harmony as they move through a stormy and 
difficult world. 

" There are in this loud stunning tide 
Of human care and crime, 
With whom the melodies abide 

Of th' everlasting chime ; 
Who carry music in their heart 
Through dusky lane and wrangling mart, 
Plying their task with busier feet 
Because their secret souls a holy strain repeat." 1 

" And after eight days again came Jesus, and 
stood in the midst and said unto them, Peace be 
unto you. Then saith He to Thomas, Reach 
hither thy finger, and behold My Hands, and 
reach hither thy hand and thrust it into My 
Side, and be not faithless but believing." Our 
Risen Saviour in His Easter Benediction appeals 
to our faith. He asks us to believe Him ; to 
lay hold of Him with trustful hands ; to ac- 
knowledge Him as our Lord and our God ; to 
let Him lead us where He will. It is the secret 
of peace, which the world knoweth not because 
it knows Him not. No philosophy can explain 
away the mysteries of this human life. None 
can adjust its contradictions, nor remove its 
distresses. The mysteries, contradictions, dis- 
tresses, still are there, after all is said and done, 
but God gives us the choice between the fretful 

1 Keble : St. Matthew's Day. 



BENEDICTION OF THE RISEN LORD. 157 



protest of our unsatisfied reason and the calm 
confession of our faith in the Risen Lord ; and 
in the hour when the troubled and terrified 
heart of man yields a childlike trust to God, 
in the hour when the helpless hand of human 
wisdom is placed in the wounded Hands of 
Jesus Christ, the Benediction of Him Who lives 
to die no more is accomplished in us, and the 
distress of doubting passes into the peace of 
believing. 

" Peace, perfect peace, in this dark world of sin ? 
The Blood of Jesus whispers peace within. 

" Peace, perfect peace, by thronging duties pressed ? 
To do the will of Jesus, this is rest. 

" Peace, perfect peace, with loved ones far away ? 
In Jesus' keeping, we are safe, and they. 

" Peace, perfect peace, our future all unknown ? 
Jesus we know, and He is on the Throne." 1 

1 E. H. Bickersteth, Bishop of Exeter, 



X. 

THE UNFOKGOTTEN LABOURERS. 



X. 



THE UNFORGrOTTEN LABOURERS. 

Preached on November 2, 1890. 

"Other men laboured, and ye are entered into their la- 
hours." — St. John iv. 38. 

It is with a heart full of gratitude to those 
who have lived, and toiled, and aspired, and suf- 
fered, and died before us, that I speak of The 
Unforgotten Labourers. " Other men laboured, 
and ye are entered into their labours.' ' I trust 
I may never lose, beneath the multiplicity of 
later impressions, the impression that was made 
upon me of our indebtedness to those who 
have gone before us, and of the charge we 
have received from their hands, when, sixteen 
years ago yesterday, I beheld Charles Kingsley 
arise in Westminster Abbey, and preach the 
All-Saints'-Day Sermon. The light of that 
eternity, upon which within three months he 
was destined to enter, appeared even then to 
rest upon his face, as he spoke of those who 
came out of the great tribulation, who have 
washed their robes and made them white in 



162 THE UNFORGOTTEN LABOURERS. 



the Blood of the Lamb, and who are before 
the Throne of God. Well has it been said of 
that sermon by her who knew him best : " It 
will never be forgotten by those who heard it. 
It was like a note of preparation for the life of 
eternal blessedness in the vision of God, upon 
which he himself was so soon to enter." 1 

I am not sorry to find that, as life has 
moved onward from that day, reverence for 
the workers of the past, and delight in com- 
memorating the Unforgotten Labourers, have 
appeared to deepen with the years ; and that 
there come times when these emotions com- 
mand expression. I do not see that it makes 
one any less broad, any less eager in his work, 
— certainly it does not make one any less 
humble and careful, — to realize how much of 
all we do is simply entering into conditions and 
possibilities created for us by the Unforgotten 
Labourers. 

The principle enunciated by our Saviour, as 
He presses home upon His disciples a sense of 
their responsibility, saying, " I sent you to reap 
that on which ye bestowed no labour ; other 
men laboured, and ye are entered into their 
labours," is one of the principles most con- 

1 Charles Kingsley : His Letters and Memories of his Life, 
edited by his Wife, vol. ii. p. 450. Tenth ed. 



THE UNFORGOTTEN LABOURERS. 163 



stantly and most seriously illustrated, nobly 
and ignobly, in the history of human affairs of 
all kinds, — national, social, and personal. It 
is easy to name at once four ways, in secular 
affairs, in which men may be said to have 
entered into the labours of other men. They 
have entered by Invasion, or by Indolence, or 
by Industry, or by Inheritance. When the 
army of occupation enters a foreign territory, 
reduces its defences, besieges its capital, un- 
seats its government, and claims its revenues, 
it enters by Invasion into the labours of other 
men. When the nerveless, inglorious slug- 
gard relies on others to do the work he should 
be doing, allows himself to be supported after 
the day when he should aspire to be the sup- 
port of some dependent life, he enters by Indo- 
lence into the labours of others. When the 
indomitable student masters a great poem, ex- 
plores a great treatise, applies a great discov- 
ery, he enters by Industry into the labours of 
others. When the child, grown man, putting 
away childish things, takes with his manhood 
the legacy of an honored father's name, and 
assumes the high position constituted by his 
father's faithfulness, he enters by Inheritance 
into the labours of another. Thus, in ways 
both weak and strong, in ways inglorious, in 



164 THE U NFOR GOT TEN LABOURERS. 



ways noble and worthy, this principle finds 
manifold application on the field of ordinary 
human affairs. 

But when the soul, whom Christ has or- 
dained to serve Him, lifts up its eyes to the 
Master's Face to learn how wide is service, and 
how high is service, and how long is service, 
Christ has His wonderful way of interpreting 
to us the width, and height, and length of ser- 
vice. What is His way ? Listen to one of the 
" stories of old." Long ago the heart of a 
young man was full of fear when he beheld 
the thronging enemies that gathered around 
him and around his prophet-master. 1 And he 
cried, " Alas, my master ! how shall we do ? " 
And the prophet-master answered : " Fear not, 
for they that be with us are more than they 
that be with them." And the prophet-master 
prayed and said : " Lord, I pray thee, open his 
eyes that he may see." And the Lord opened 
the eyes of the young man and he saw, and, 
behold, the mountain was full of horses and 
chariots of fire. Even thus there comes to 
Christ, the Greater Prophet-Master, the soul 
charged with the longing to make life some- 
what grander than a service of self, the long- 
ing to climb that Godward path of the moim- 

1 2 Kings vi. 15-23. 



THE UNFORGOTTEN LABOURERS. 165 



tain, that rises upward, ever upward, above 
things base and mean, unto things unselfish, 
ungrudging, undefiled. And, coming to the 
Prophet-Master, he asks, " What shall I do ? 
How shall I do ? " And the Prophet-Master 
opens his eyes to see that Godward path he 
seeks to climb, and, lo ! it is thronged, up to 
the very top, down to the very bottom where he 
stands. A multitude whom no man can num- 
ber he sees with his opened eyes. They are 
full of unlikeness, yet full of likeness, — full 
of unlikeness in their earthly beginnings, for 
they are of all nations and kindreds and peoples 
and tongues ; full of unlikeness in their natu- 
ral advantage, for some are crowned as with 
coronets, and some are in coarse raiment ; full 
of unlikeness in their natural strength, for 
some are men and some are women, and many 
are children ; some are strong and some are 
suffering. Yet full of likeness ! for the same 
Light is on their faces as they climb, and the 
same glad love is in their hearts. And the 
soul that has come to the Prophet-Master asks : 
" What are these, and whence came they ? " 
And the Prophet-Master answers, " These are 
the Unforgotten Labourers. See them. Re- 
member them. Enter into their labours." 
To-day the Prophet-Master stands among us, 



166 THE UNFORGOTTEN LABOURERS. 



and opens our eyes to see that far-reaching 
company of the Unforgotten Labourers who 
have gone on before us, setting their feet 
where we would set our own ; preparing the 
way, that we may not miss it ; doing so much 
we need not do again ; opening so much for us 
to do, which, but for them, we could not have 
done, — we might not even have desired to do ; 
showing us what can be done, that we may 
have faith to try also to do it. And as the 
Prophet-Master opens our eyes, we see that 
many of those faces are faces we have known, 
— faces that we have seen flushed with energy, 
or pallid with fatigue, or wet with tears, or 
furrowed with suffering, that they might keep 
in that path of service for our sake who would 
come after them. And the Prophet-Master 
simply says, " Other men laboured, and ye are 
entered into their labours ! " 

" Other men laboured ! " This is our Spirit- 
ual Ancestry ! Pause a moment, earnest heart, 
while before us remains this vision of the God- 
ward path, thronged with the Unforgotten La- 
bourers, and think of that continuity of spirit- 
ual life which runs in our veins, and runs back 
from us, through all the Unforgotten Labour- 
ers, straight to Him Who first, by the Might of 
His Own Example, and then by the Mystery of 



THE UN FOR G TTEN LABOURERS. 167 



His Cross and Passion, taught men to desire to 
die unto sin and live unto righteousness ; to 
desire to spend and be spent for the sake of 
others. This is the unwritten Book of the 
Genealogy of Jesus Christ. In the Gospel of 
St. Matthew we read that human pedigree of 
Christ, traced step by step from David down 
to Him Who is both David's Son and David's 
Lord. But through the unbroken succession 
of the Unforgotten Labourers, we, if the Spirit 
of Christ is ours, can trace our spiritual lineage 
back through those who have gone before us, 
heart before heart, heart before heart, till we 
reach the Heart that came not to be ministered 
unto but to minister, and to give Its Life a ran- 
som for many. Who is not stronger for remem- 
bering, amidst that appalling loneliness which 
at times overtakes every one who essays to live 
above self and above the world, — who is not 
stronger for remembering that we ourselves are 
links in that bright chain, the genealogy of 
kindred spirits knit together, the known and 
the unknown, in one communion, reaching back 
over the wastes of nineteen centuries ; grappled 
at last, as with hooks of steel, to the very Man- 
hood of the Son of God ! 

Other men laboured ! This is the Brother- 
hood of Experience ! Who has not felt, at 



168 THE UN FOR GOT TEN LABOURERS. 



times overpoweringly, the individuality of his 
own mission, shuddering with dread before the 
unexplored newness of life ! The conditions 
of his existence seem combined according to a 
new formula, whereof none has ever held the 
key or seen the resultant. It is so awful to 
live and to know so little of the meaning of 
life ; to realize that what we are set to do or 
to undo, to carry or to put away, to conquer or 
to crucify, is so unlike that which is given to 
others ; to feel that we have been flung upon 
this dangerous shore of life as empty-handed 
and as ignorant as the shipwrecked sailor swept 
upon a land of which he knows not so much 
as the name ! — 

" Alone to land upon that shore 
With no one sight that we have seen before, — 
Things of a different hue 
And sounds all strange and new, — 
No forms of earth for fancy to arrange, 
But to begin alone that mighty change." 1 

And then the Prophet-Master simply says to 
us, " Other men laboured ! " and in that word 
we remember the Brotherhood of Experience : 
we know that we are not the first to be flung" 
upon life's dangerous coast with no man to 
tell the way ; not the first to encounter the 
peril of choice, the grim finality of decision ; 

1 F. W. Faber, D. D. 



THE UNFORGOTTEN LABOURERS. 169 



not the first to feel the currents of adversity 
dragging backward around us like the under- 
tow; not the first to call and hear no answer 
come out of that chill, impenetrable fogbank 
of the Yet To Be ! Other men laboured ! 
Ah, yes ! Why should we shrink back from 
that which has been accepted so cheerfully, 
endured so splendidly, many, many times? 
Why should we feel that we were singled out 
for a new vocation of pain, or privation, or 
doubt, or loneliness, or care, or toil, and not 
acknowledge that in all these things we are 
but brethren to the Unforgotten Labourers? • 
Why should we complain, as though an unjust 
pressure were put upon us ; or fret, as if the 
pain were cruelty ; or debate, as though per- 
chance love had leaked away out of God's 
Heart, — when we know that other men la- 
boured ? We may be swept on some desolate 
shore, but there before us is the footprint of a 
man. We may be shut up in a very narrow 
prison, but there, cut in the stone, is the signa- 
ture of a saint. Other men laboured : — 

" Where now with pain thou treadest, trod 
The whitest of the Saints of God ! 
To show thee where their feet were set, 
The light which led them shineth yet." 1 

And ye are entered into their labours ! As 

1 John Greenleaf Whittier. 



170 THE UN FOR GOT TEN LABOURERS. 



we pass to this part of this great Word of the 
Prophet-Master, a new light seems to fall on 
that long file of the Unforgotten Labourers 
toiling up before us on the mountain of God ; 
and not only to fall on them but to fall on us, 
showing us how truly and how grandly we are 
with them and of them ; that they could not 
complete their purposes without us, and we 
could not attain our victory without them. 
" Ye," says Christ, " are entered into their la- 
bours." We have entered in as their heirs, — 
they have transmitted an inheritance. They 
had set their love upon us, seeing us afar off, 
and desiring to make the way of truth more 
clear and glorious in our eyes. Not for them- 
selves did they live above themselves and above 
the world ; not for themselves have the Unfor- 
gotten Labourers laid on the Altar of Sacrifice 
strength, wealth, labor, safety, — yes, even life 
itself ; not for themselves have they endured 
the Cross, despising the shame ; not for them- 
selves have they left us an example that we 
should follow their steps, in the pureness of 
their mind, in the patience of their gentleness, 
% in the courage of their faith, in the fidelity of 
their love, in the zeal of their work. " They 
dreamt not of a perishable home who thus 
could build." No ! Those who have had 



THE UNFORGOTTEN LABOURERS. 171 



within them most richly of the Spirit of Christ 
have most intensely lived for those who were 
coming after them, esteeming themselves to 
have succeeded best if they might hand on to 
us undefiled the Ark of Truth, and mark for 
others, though it were with their own blood, 
the path that leads at last to the Light. Ah, 
blessed ones ! pure ones ! who have loved us 
and have aspired for us ; who, in their own 
sorrows, have anticipated ours, and have tried 
to leave on record that which miofht be to us 
a sign to conquer by ; who in their own aspi- 
rations have tried to lift us, " as the eagle 
flutter eth over her young, spread eth abroad 
her wings, taketh them, beareth them on her 
wings," 1 — they have transmitted an inherit- 
ance unto us, those Unforgotten Labourers, 
and we are entered into their labours ! " How 
large a part of our Godward life is travelled, 
not by clear landmarks seen far off in the 
promised land, but as travellers climb a moun- 
tain peak, by putting footstep after footstep, 
slowly and patiently, into the prints which 
some one, going before us, with keener sight, 
with stronger nerves, tied to us by the chord 
of saintly sympathy, has planted deep into 
the pathless snow of the bleak distance that 

1 Dent, xxxii. 11. 



172 THE UNFORGOTTEN LABOURERS. 



stretches up between humanity and God ! We 
ascend by one another. No man liveth to him- 
self, and no man dieth to himself. We live 
and die, not only to God, but to each other." 1 

" Other men laboured, and ye are entered 
into their labours ! " If upon any of us has 
fallen with power this thought of the Unfor 1 
gotten Labourers ; if we have been led to think 
to-day of the love a father or a mother, a 
brother, a sister, or a friend, bore toward us ; 
of the efforts after completeness they made for 
our sake ; of the inheritance of opportunity 
they transmitted unto us ; and if, thinking out 
upon wider lines, we have gathered in remem- 
brance all who loved us, who trusted in us, 
and who have gone before us up that won- 
drous mountain-path, — how shall this thought 
come in and temper our characters from this 
day forward ? Shall it not make us truly 
humble and truly brave ? 

Truly humble, I say. Not falsely and un- 
truly humble, with vain and insincere attempts 
at self-depreciation, speaking of our God-given 
powers as poor and mean. Not this, but truly 
humble, as we remember how much of our best 
labour is and must continue to be but an en- 
tering into the labours of others ; how much of 
our finest life is altogether conditioned on the 

1 Bishop Phillips Brooks. 



THE UNFORGOTTEN LABOURERS. 173 



genius, or the fidelity, or the sacrifice, or the 
suffering of those who have gone before us; 
how much of our most advanced and aggres- 
sive work is possible only because Unforgotten 
Labourers have laid, in courses of tears, the 
twelvefold foundations on which we build our 
heavenliest superstructures. Yes ! truly hum- 
ble, as we remember " the saints who from 
their labours rest ; " the merciful, the poor in 
spirit, the meek, the pure in heart, the peace- 
makers, the persecuted for righteousness' sake. 
How easy to find among them a Better to 
crown our best, a Greater to include and soar 
above our greatest ! 

And shall it not make us truly brave, — oh, 
for once and forever truly brave; not falsely 
and vainly brave, in the emptiness of boasting, 
in the cheap disparagement of the awfulness 
of living ; but truly brave through the sense 
of kinship with Unforgotten Labourers u who 
through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought 
righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the 
mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, 
out of weakness were made strong, waxed val- 
iant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the 
aliens " ? 1 Yes, truly brave, when we remem- 
ber that we are kin to those of whom the world 

1 Heb. xi. 33, 34. 



174 THE UN FOR G TTEN LABOURERS. 



was not worthy ; who had greater pressure 
than we, yet were not broken under it ; greater 
disappointment than we, yet were not embit- 
tered by it ; greater temptation than we, yet 
were not vanquished before it ; greater mys- 
tery than we, yet were not hopeless amidst it. 
These all died in faith, making, every one of 
them, life seem to some one else forever a no- 
bler, wider, worthier thing ; helping, every one 
of them, goodness and purity and patience 
and the conquest of self to demonstrate 
themselves to some one else as the very evi- 
dences of Christ ; leaving, every one of them, 
sunk deep in the heart of some one else an 
unconquerable passion to be strong as they 
were strong. And we are kin to them, those 
Unf orgotten Labourers ; next in line to some 
of them we stand, amongst those who have 
essayed in Christ to climb that mountain path, 
and to rise above self ! Can we drop out 
where they went on ? — we fear to watch with 
Him one bitter or one arduous hour, when 
they kept vigil till the day broke? It must 
not be. It cannot be. Please God, it shall not 
be, if the spirit of our life be the spirit of 
that supplication poured from a human heart 
hundreds of years ago (the prayer of Thomas 
Aquinas), " Give me, Jesus, a wakeful heart, 



THE UNFORGOTTEN LABOURERS. 175 



which no curious imagination may withdraw 
from Thee ; give me a steadfast heart, which 
no unworthy affection may drag downward ; 
give me an unconquered heart, which no trib- 
ulation can wear out ; give me a free and dis- 
engaged heart, which the violence of no ab- 
sorbing fascination may enslave ; give me an 
upright heart, which no unworthy purpose may 
tempt aside." Amen. 



XI. 

THE GIFT OF ADVERSITY. 



XI. 



THE GIFT OF ADVERSITY. 

" Though the Lord give you the bread of adversity and the 
water of affliction, thine eyes shall see thy teachers ; and thine 
ears shall hear a word behind thee saying, This is the way ; 
walk ye in it." — Isaiah xxx. 20, 21. 

We have approached a subject which can 
only be touched, if touched at all in open 
speech, with the greatest reverence, with the 
greatest tenderness, and with the greatest deli- 
cacy, — The Gift of Adversity. There are three 
reasons which can immediately be given why 
it is difficult to speak upon this theme. One 
reason is, one knows so little of the extent 
of adversity in the lives around him. It is of 
the nature of prosperity to reveal itself ; like 
the vigorous plant, it tends boldly out into the 
joyous sunlight, and unfolds its beauty to the 
eyes of others. It is of the nature of adver- 
sity to hide itself within a sensitive life. In- 
stinctively we draw the robe of a dignified con- 
cealment over our wounded spirit, and prefer 
to suffer unobserved. Therefore one who ven- 
tures to speak of adversity feels, almost with 



180 THE GIFT OF ADVERSITY. 



awe, how little he knows where his words may 
fall on pained and overburdened hearts. An- 
other reason is : One fears lest his words may 
sound superficial to those who are in the school 
of adversity ; that some may say to him in their 
hearts, " Ah, you do not know. If you knew 
you would not say it," forgetting, perhaps, that 
God has many ways of giving us knowledge of 
the gift of adversity. And yet another reason 
is, that sometimes the heart resents the effort 
to reconcile it to adversity. It refuses to be 
comforted. Its adversity is so bitter and so 
unwelcome the heart is alienated from its lot, 
repudiates its cross, loathes its meagre fare of 
bread and water, struggling restively to shake 
off its chain. For these reasons, it is no light 
matter to speak of adversity. 

But, on the other hand, it is a most blessed 
subject on which to speak. One is so certain, 
in speaking, to find fellowship in many other 
lives, who, like one's self, have caught, however 
dimly, the thought that adversity must, in some 
way, be a gift of God ; that it cannot all be a 
mistake, a lapse and breakdown of His plan, 
much less a visitation of His anger; that it 
must be in the plan, and in the love, and unto 
the " best " that " is yet to be." One is so cer- 
tain, in speaking, that others all around him 



THE GIFT OF ADVERSITY. 



181 



have had Christ made known unto them in the 
breaking of the bread of adversity, in the pour- 
ing out of the water of affliction, — have had 
the Keal Presence in the holy sacrament of 
hardship, have heard through pain and fear the 
whisper of that dear Guardian Who follows 
ever behind us, saying, " This is the way ; walk 
ye in it." 

What is adversity ? Adversity is not merely 
the loss of money. The loss of money may, 
and continually does, create a state of adversity, 
but it is one of the incidental causes of that 
state, which may also be brought about by an 
infinite number of other causes as well ; inso- 
much that there may be the most bitter adver- 
sity in a life whose money matters are all in 
good condition. The clue to the real nature of 
adversity is found in the word itself, " Adver- 
sus," that which is against us, contrary to us, 
in opposition to our hopes, our desires, our ex- 
pectations, or our efforts. The failure of bod- 
ily strength, so that the ambitious and willing 
spirit can no more control the fainting and suf- 
fering flesh, but must go halting or maimed, 
or internally tortured, — this is adversity. The 
embarrassment of our fortunes, so that hopes 
once considered reasonable are wrecked by the 
weakness of another, and life is made one des- 



182 



THE GIFT OF ADVERSITY. 



perate, heart-sickening chase to overtake our 
pecuniary obligations, — this is adversity. The 
postponement of plans, with life slipping by, 
and the ardent heart aching to express itself in 
greater ways ; yet stolid obstacles standing in 
the path, and bolted doors of necessity shut- 
ting in the eager mind, — this is adversity. 
The withheld completion of desire, when the 
skilled and gentle hands remain empty-handed, 
when the hungering outgoings of affection 
remain unappeased ; when " the thing prayed 
for comes " hopelessly " short of the prayer," 
— this is adversity. The shattering of an 
ideal, so that love and trust are profaned, joy- 
ous certitude transmuted into gnawing doubt, 
hero-worship beaten to the ground, and belief 
in goodness savagely shaken, — this is adversity. 
The shadow of death ! falling at noonday on 
our beloved ; quenching the beams of mental 
clearness, hushing the silvery voice of greet- 
ing, spreading through the once joyous home 
the gloom of fearful sickness, the lamentations 
of bereavement, — this is adversity. 

Yes, these are adversity, and others like 
unto them, every one like all the rest in this : 
it is in our life the expression of the " Adver- 
sus," of that which is against us, and opposed 
to us, from the standpoint of our hopes, de- 



THE GIFT OF ADVERSITY. 183 



sires, expectations, or efforts. And who amongst 
us all has not known in some degree, small or 
great, the sensation of being met by the 
" Adversus," standing like a veiled angel in our 
path, blocking the way, and, when from our 
impetuous heart breaks the "I will," "I must," 
calmly answering, " And thou shalt not." 
mysterious figure ! veiled angel of the u Adver- 
sus ! " whence art thou ? Art thou the enemy 
of God rising from the dark depths beneath to 
thwart Him, to confuse His plans, to block His 
way, to keep us from entering into the com- 
pleteness He has it in His Heart to give us ? 
or art thou the messenger and gift of God, sent 
down from the Father of Lights, from Whom 
cometh every good and perfect gift, to bless us 
by opposing us, to enrich us by impoverishing 
us, to turn us back from going our way that 
we may find a more excellent way, that we may 
be guided into all truth ? Whence is adversity ? 
Is it all a mistake and a catastrophe, and an 
evidence of failure, that in this world so much 
is as we would not have it be, so much is not as 
we prayed it might be ? Is it all wrong, and 
confusion, and the losing of the way, that, for 
so many, life is other than they hope, other than 
they desire, other than they endeavor to make 
it? Or can this be, not a break in the plan, 



184 THE GIFT OF ADVERSITY. 



but a part of the plan ? Can this be, not a 
gloomy catastrophe, but an order, a spiritual 
order ; not a discord, but an involved harmony, 
to be resolved, through marvellous intervals, 
into the clear " major " of a perfected life ? 
Can it be ? 

Listen ! The one thing that I seek most 
carefully not to do is to idealize adversity, to 
tell you that pain is not pain, that sorrow is not 
sorrow, that heart-hunger and unrest are not 
the devastating things they seem to be. How 
could one even wish — much more, how could 
one dare — to call pain by any other name than 
pain, or sorrow by any other name than sorrow, 
when the Holy Ghost hath said " no chasten- 
ing for the present seemeth to be joyous, but 
grievous ? " 1 But if the one thing that I seek 
most carefully not to do is to commit the van- 
ity of idealizing adversity, and of preaching 
any painless pain, the one thing that I most 
desire to do is to speak of what new powers 
and certainties may come into a life and be 
forevermore a part of it, what new seeings and 
what new hearings, if a soul can in any way be 
brought to look upon 'adversity as a gift from 
the Father, — a sacrament of bread and water 
administered by the very Hand of God ; a true 
i Heb. xii. 11. 



THE GIFT OF ADVERSITY. 



185 



communion ordinance. Can I speak to you of 
this ? Will you have patience with me while I 
speak of the new seeing and the new hearing 
which come to those who bend in communion 
at this Life-Altar of Sacrifice, and who take 
out of God's Hand the Holy Elements, the 
bread of adversity and the water of affliction ? 
" Though the Lord give you the bread of ad- 
versity and the water of affliction, thine eyes 
shall see thy teachers, and thine ears shall hear 
a word behind thee saying, This is the way ; 
walk ye in it." 

You will perhaps have observed, before I 
point out the thought to you, that three ele- 
mentary factors of our life stand related in this 
verse, — eating, seeing, hearing. God is repre- 
sented as giving one a portion of food, and, lo ! 
for him who eats it the eyes are opened to see 
one's teachers, and the ears are quickened to 
hear that gentle word of reassurance nerving 
one with courage to go on : " This is the way, 
walk thou in it." 

There could hardly be a more profound way 
of setting before our* minds what it is to accept 
adversity, than as it is here represented under 
the elements of bread and water, given and 
received : " Though the Lord give you the 
bread of adversity and the water of affliction." 



186 THE GIFT OF ADVERSITY. 



It is wonderful to group together - the appa- 
rently incongruous ideas which are presented to 
our minds in the associations connected with 
bread and water. Bread and water are prison 
fare, the most meagre and joyless table in the 
world, spread for him who is deprived of lib- 
erty and of light, who is appointed for the 
discipline of loneliness, of suffering, and per- 
chance of death. But bread and water are 
also the great universal supports of life ; they 
are the primal elements of man's strength in 
all countries, in all grades of society, in all 
periods of the world. Men of unrelated races 
may not understand each other's ways of living, 
may look with amazement upon the foods which 
in various countries are considered articles of 
luxury ; but where could two men of opposite 
nationalities be found who would not under- 
stand and hold in common the elements of 
bread and water? Bread and water are both 
of them taken by Christ as types of Himself, in 
what He is, in what He can bestow : " I am 
the bread of life ; " 1 " Whosoever drinketh of 
the water that I shall give him shall never 
thirst." 2 They become, therefore, associated 
with all that is most rich in itself, with all that 
is most spiritually satisfying to those who can 

i St. Jno. vL 48. 2 St. Jno. iv. 14. 



THE GIFT OF ADVERSITY. 187 



receive it ; they are the emblems of Him in 
Whom it was the good pleasure of the Father 
that all the fulness should dwell. 1 And now 
we are asked to think of them as sacramental 
emblems of that many-sided adversity which, in 
one form or another, is so certainly to be pre- 
sented to us for our acceptance. And with all 
these different thoughts of bread and water 
standing together in our minds, — bread and 
water as the wretched, joyless prison fare ; bread 
and water as the elements of food which all men 
share in common ; bread and water as types of 
the gracious fulness of Christ, — let us think 
of them as sacramental emblems of adversity 
offered to us in the Hand of God, the bread of 
adversity and the water of affliction. 

You look at them and you say : " Prison 
fare, meagre and wretched ; take theni away. 
I want better food." Dear friend, I cannot 
blame you if you say that, for pain is pain, and 
sorrow is sorrow, and disappointment is disap- 
pointment, and they are all prison fare, meagre 
and joyless and repulsive. Who wants to live 
like that ? Who does not turn away sickened 
from the diet of adversity to think of the bright 
and bounteous feasts of prosperity ? 

Bread and water ! Look again, and you see 

J Col. i. 18. 



188 



THE GIFT OF ADVERSITY. 



that they are elements, — elements of all hu- 
man life, everywhere, always. Who in health 
has ever lived altogether without them ? Who 
in health could live altogether without them ? 
What, then, has been a part of human life, 
always, everywhere, and for all, cannot be an 
accident, or an exception under some larger 
rule, or an unmitigated evil. It must be a part 
of the thing itself that we call life. Would it 
be well for any one of us to be exempted from 
that which has been offered always and every- 
where and unto all? Would it be reasonable 
to believe that for you alone, of all humanity, 
greater completeness could be had outside of the 
rule than inside of the rule ? Must, not this 
mystical bread and water of adversity and afflic- 
tion be in some way necessary to man, since they 
are as universal as life, — as universal as death ? 

Bread and water ! Look again ! These things 
are chosen emblems of Christ as well as em- 
blems of adversity. He is bread and He is 
water in the f illness and the richness of His 
capacity to feed the hunger of man's soul and to 
quench his thirst. And we know that He ate 
of the bread of adversity and drank of the 
water of affliction ; He condescended to live on 
the prison fare, and to take into Himself the 
primal elements of human experience. And 



THE GIFT OF ADVERSITY. 



189 



therein we all feel that He lost not of His ful- 
ness but gained ; and " in that He Himself 
hath suffered being tempted, He is able also to 
succour them that are tempted." 1 What then : 
can it be that if we, like Him, accept these 
things as from the Father, and so eat of this 
bread and drink of this water, we, like Him, 
shall gain, and not lose, the fulness of our 
character ? " Take, eat," He says, as He lays 
in our hand the bread of adversity. " Drink 
ye all of it," He says, and offers us the water 
of affliction. It is a sacrament. It is a com- 
munion. Will you receive the communion of 
sickness, of loss of property, of delay, of the 
withheld completion of desire, of the shatter- 
ing of an ideal, of the shadow of death ? Will 
you eat this bread, and will you drink this 
water, joyless and unattractive in itself, as from 
God's Hand ? Will you receive it into your- 
self, and let it become a part of yourself, in- 
corporate in your selfhood, bone of your bone, 
flesh of your flesh ? Then shall come to pass 
in you, accepting your adversity and not pro- 
testing against it, eating and drinking the sacra- 
ment of hardship and not despising the chas- 
tening of the Lord, 2 then shall come to pass 
in your life the opening up of new knowledge, 

1 Heb. ii. 18. 2 Heb. xii. 5. 



190 



THE GIFT OF ADVERSITY. 



the consciousness of new help. " Thine eyes 
shall see thy teachers, and thine ears shall hear 
a word behind thee saying, This is the way ; 
walk ye in it." 

" Thine eyes shall see thy teachers," — this 
is the opening of the eyes in the new seeing, 
which comes only when the sacrament is eaten : 
that is, when the adversity is accepted as a part 
of God's gift to one's life. Twice in the Scrip- 
tures, in very extraordinary circumstances and 
in absolutely opposite relations, a new power 
of vision is represented as following the act of 
eating, — once in the Garden of Eden, 1 once in 
the resting-place at Emmaus. 2 

In the Garden of Eden the Devil strove with 
a human soul to alienate it from the life of 
God : his point was to make that life eat wdiat 
God had not offered to it, and his bribe was 
the promise of a new and godlike vision to 
follow upon the eating. " In the day ye eat 
thereof, then your eyes shall be opened and ye 
shall be as gods, knowing good and evil." The 
soul accepted from the Devil's hand that which 
God had forbidden it to accept, and its eyes 
were opened, but unto what ? Unto shame and 
confusion, and the dread of the Presence of 
God. 

1 Gen. iii. 7. 2 St.Lk. xxiv. 31. 



THE GIFT OF ADVERSITY. 191 



In the resting place at Emmaus, in that soft 
eventide of the blessed Easter Day, there sat at 
meat a Man and two companions. They did 
not know Him. He wanted them to know Him. 
How did He bring it about ? " It came to pass 
as He sat at meat with them, He took bread and 
blessed it and brake and gave it unto them, and 
their eyes were opened and they knew Him." 
" Though the Lord give you the bread of ad- 
versity and the water of affliction, thine eyes 
shall see thy teachers." There are certain les- 
sons we cannot learn until we see our teachers. 
These are the lessons of adversity. If in the 
bitterness of our soul we despise the chastening 
of the Lord, holding the bread and water to be 
mere prison fare unfit to be eaten, there will 
be nothing in adversity to teach us ; we shall 
be not one whit wiser, or richer, or grander in 
character. It is not adversity that sanctifies. 
It is the acceptance of adversity as a sacrament 
offered by the Risen Lord. In the acceptance 
of what He is pleased to offer us, comes the 
opening of our eyes to see our teachers. For 
there are certain things which no man can ever 
learn, which even God Himself cannot teach, 
except through adversity. There could not be 
patience without adversity, for patience is the 
power of suffering calmly some dispensation of 



192 THE GIFT OF ADVERSITY. 



the Adversus. There could not be fortitude 
without adversity, for fortitude is the glorious 
endurance in the presence of that which brings 
the strain and the pang and the pressure of the 
Adversus. There could not be tested faith 
without adversity, for we have not known the 
deeper meanings of faith and trust till we have 
dared to throw ourselves on Christ in an hour 
of trial, and to enter personally into the fellow- 
ship of His sufferings. " Thine eyes shall see 
thy teachers." Oh, that new seeing which 
conies like an added sense when one has taken, 
even once or twice, the communion of hardship 
from the Hand of Christ, that new sense of the 
meaning of life when one has suffered even a 
little for righteousness' sake ! 

" Only by its woes 
Our life to fulness grows ! " 

" And thine ears shall hear a word behind 
thee, saying, This is the way ; walk ye in it." 
This is the new hearing given to him who takes 
and eats this bread and drinks this cup, accept- 
ing his adversity as a sacramental gift of God. 
In the hour when he ceases to beat against his 
fate, in the hour when without bitterness he 
accepts his portion, there begins to come into 
his life a sense of the nearness of Christ, and an 
assurance, nobler in its influence than anything 



THE GIFT OF ADVERSITY. 



193 



else on earth, that in suffering he is not losing 
all, but gaining all ; and his ears, quickened of 
God, hear a word behind him, a word o£ calm- 
ness, a word of reassurance, saying : " This is 
the way, walk thou in it." 

" This is the way." Oh, word of comfort in- 
deed ! setting us right about the meaning of life. 
Hardship and trouble seem to him whose eyes 
are not opened, whose ears are not quickened, 
like the losing of the path, like a plunge in the 
darkness over the brink of the path into the 
thicket and the fen. And he struggles there in 
the darkness, feeling that his life is broken and 
overturned. He thinks that he is alone. Others 
seem to have gone on and left him to struggle 
in the dark. At last, weary of struggling in a 
place without a path, he bethinks him of Christ, 
and in the darkness and the loneliness he wishes 
that he knew where he might find Him, that 
Christ would come to him and lead him up to 
the path once more. He prays, he trusts, he 
accepts the will of God ; and, lo ! a gentle 
whisper in the darkness, a word behind him 
saying : " This is the way ; walk thou in it." 
Christ is there with him, and has never left him. 
He has not lost his way. This is the way, 
— strangely dark, and strangely rough, and 
strangely lonely, but still the way that leads 
out at last into the sunlight. Amen. 



XII. 

THE SPLENDID IDEAL. 



XII. 



THE SPLENDID IDEAL. 

" That the Life of Jesus may be manifested in our mortal 
flesh." — 2 Corinthians iv. 11, R. V. 

The theme of this sermon is The Splendid 
Ideal. What else could it be with such a text, 
so clear, so fearless, so purposeful, so compre- 
hensive ? In the realm of the industrial arts, man 
by thought and skill has realized many wonder- 
ful ideals, in bringing resultants of beauty out 
of unlikely and unbeautiful substances. Out 
of the lump of dingy ore he coins the glittering 
eagle and the shining sovereign ; out of the 
bale of unclean rag's he brings the reams of 
spotless paper ; out of the black mass of coal 
tar he evolves the brilliant colors of the rain- 
bow. But the most splendid ideal which ever 
shot like fire from heaven, to light up man's 
mind, came when it was given him to conceive 
of exhibiting in a life limited by sin, enfeebled 
by infirmity, and given over unto death, the 
light, the symmetry, the strength, of the one All- 
Perfect Life. If we did not know that the 



198 



THE SPLENDID IDEAL. 



thought was given him of God, breathed into 
him, as the breath of a new existence, by the 
breathings of the Holy Spirit, we should call it 
a presumptuous and daring ideal. But we know 
that God has given us this splendid ideal ; God 
Himself has taught us to formulate it, and to 
look upon it as by no means an impossibility ; 
" That the Life of Jesus may be manifested in 
our mortal flesh. •" 

Under three divisions of thought we shall 
study the splendid ideal. The three are com- 
prehended in the text. First, there is the idea 
of manifesting : " That the Life of Jesus may 
be manifested." Second, there is the splendid 
thing to be manifested : " The Life of Jesus." 
Third, there is the scene of this proposed exhi- 
bition of " The Life of Jesus manifested in 
our mortal flesh." Herein, then, are three 
clear divisions of thought, — the idea of mani- 
festation ; the thing to be manifested ; the 
scene of the proposed manifesting. The* idea 
of manifestation is the highest possible thought 
man can entertain about himself. The thing 
here proposed for manifestation is the greatest 
possible thing that can be manifested. The 
scene of this proposed manifestation is at once 
the most unlikely and the most appropriate 
possible scene for this particular exhibition. 



THE SPLENDID IDEAL, 



199 



The idea of manifestation is the highest possi- 
ble thought man can entertain about himself. 
There are times when a man must think ear- 
nestly, and think earnestly about himself. He 
caunot always continue a stranger to himself. 
Many of us do not desire to be strangers 
to ourselves ; and often we willingly yet 
anxiously ponder this question : Why am I 
here ? Why was I sent into the world ? What 
does life really mean to me ? If it were possible 
to hold every one to this question long enough 
to extort the answer, and the true answer, — the 
answer, that is, which would represent the ex- 
act and literal ideal of the individual who gave 
it, — it is probable that three answers would in- 
clude the replies of almost all persons. What 
does life really mean to me ? To escape. What 
does life really mean to me ? To acquire. 
What does life really mean to me ? To mani- 
fest. 

To escape, to acquire, to manifest. These 
three are thoughts that men have entertained 
about themselves ; probably most men have had 
glimmerings of all of these three thoughts at 
one time or at another time : yet, in the heart 
of hearts, one or the other of these thoughts is 
dominant, and gives tone to the life. 

What does life really mean to me? To 



200 



THE SPLENDID IDEAL. 



escape. This is the feeblest of the three replies, 
and I fear must be looked upon as character- 
istic of the weakest natures. I say so tenderly, 
but without hesitation. Life appears to mean, 
to some, perpetual, lucky escape ; always get- 
ting out of things just in time to' evade responsi- 
bility; always managing to turn off the hard 
work upon some one else ; always contriving to 
slip along in happy heedlessness, smiling or 
whistling ; always well out of sight, cruising 
on some sunny Galilee, when some one else is 
being crucified at Jerusalem. 

What does life really mean to me ? To ac- 
quire. This is the robust reply of the average 
natural man, in the race and bound to win. 
Clear as to his brain, he sights opportunities 
far ahead, and crowds on all sail to overtake 
them. Hot as to his ambition, he has no idea 
of being left behind in anything he undertakes. 
Kind as to his heart, he wants the best for 
those he loves, and, outside of getting it, he 
knows no vocation. " Have I made, or have I 
lost?" is the balance in which he weighs the 
years. How many grand, true-hearted men are 
in this class ! It is not I who say they are in it, 
they say so themselves : " We are men of busi- 
ness through and through." But God is lead- 
ing some of them to be this not only, but much 



THE SPLENDID IDEAL. 201 



more than this, — even to touch with their 
truest selfhood that plane where the life is more 
than meat, and the body is more than raiment, 
and where the meaning of life is more than to 
acquire. 

For there is a higher plane, whether man 
reach it or not, — a plane where he who asks 
himself, " What does life really mean to me ? " 
answers with most serious and noble joy, It 
means to manifest. And what is this word, 
"to manifest"? It is to express something, 
to say some word with the lips, or with the 
pen, or with the pencil, or with the brush, or 
with the chisel, or with the instrument of music, 
or with the sword, or with the use of property, 
or with the force and truth of character, which 
will honor God, the Power-giver, and which 
will bless, strengthen, delight, or guide others 
in the saying of it. Yes, to manifest, to express, 
to utter something, — the consciousness that one 
is sent here for this is the highest possible 
thought man can entertain about himself, and 
out of it have been born the best attainments 
ever reached by man or woman : the greatest 
bravery, the most brilliant talent, the most com- 
pelling eloquence of character, the most mar- 
vellous influence over youth, the most telling 
witness-bearing for Jesus Christ. Life in its 



202 



THE SPLENDID IDEAL. 



highest sense signifies not, for such, to escape, 
not to acquire ; but supremely, to manifest, to 
utter, to express some God-given power of gen- 
ius, or courage, or love. And wherever we find 
the greatest, we find those to whom life's suprem- 
est meaning has been to manifest, to say in 
word or deed what one has been given to say. 
And those who have walked most gloriously on 
that plane are those whose names are coupled 
with the greatness, or the beauty, or the bravery 
of what they uttered, whether their deeds were 
material or spiritual. Of such w r ere some we 
knew in the flesh, and others whom we knew 
only in the glory of their names and in the 
immortal earnestness of their works. Of such 
were Roswell Hitchcock and Mary Brigham, 
Philip Sheridan and George Peabody, , Albert 
Thorwaldsen and Richard Wagner, Robert 
Browning and Lacordaire, Elizabeth of Hun- 
gary and Savonarola, Saul of Tarsus and John 
the Baptist. To each and every one of these, 
and to all who share their spirit, the mean- 
ing of life has been first and supremely to 
manifest, to say a word that has been given, 
to be a voice crying in the wilderness, or 
shouting on the battlefield, or pleading from 
the pulpit, or counselling in the school, or 
consecrating a fortune, or carving thoughts 



THE SPLENDID IDEAL. 



203 



in marble, or revealing humanity to itself 
through philosophic music and verse. Wide 
as were the differences between these lives, 
they were one in this : to all of them alike 
life meant more than to escape, — more even 
than to acquire : it meant supremely, to ex- 
press, to utter, to manifest that which had 
been given them, that they might not keep it 
to themselves, but that they might give it forth 
again to others. The highest meaning of life 
for us therefore, as for them, is not to have 
escaped toil and care, and to have slipped 
along easily ; it is not to have acquired that 
which satisfies our desires, and which enables 
us to settle down in comfortable tranquillity: 
the highest meaning of life is to express, in 
word and deed, the best which God has made 
known to us. He who simply escapes has his 
poor reward ; he to whom life only means to 
acquire has his share of satisfaction if his plans 
turn out well ; but only he who has caught the 
idea of expressing in his life some word, some 
thought of helpfulness which God has given 
him to say, — only he has thought the highest 
thought which man can think about himself. 

As we study onward concerning this splendid 
ideal, which God sends to our minds through 
His Word, we find not only that it is an ideal 



204 



THE SPLENDID IDEAL. 



of manifestation, which is the highest possible 
thought man can entertain about himself, but 
we find also that the thing here proposed for 
manifestation is the greatest possible thing that 
can be manifested. The splendid ideal is not 
only that we shall five the life of manifestation, 
as against the ignoble life of mere escaping, or 
as against the insufficient life of mere acquisi- 
tion. The splendid ideal is, that in our manifest- 
ing, we shall manifest the greatest thing that 
could possibly be manifested : " That the Life 
of Jesus may be manifested." There are not 
two opinions about the grandeur of the Life 
of Jesus. Whatever men may confess or deny 
about the Nature of Jesus, all men grant that 
the Life of Jesus is the most perfect life, in its 
purity, truth, and love, that has ever been 
revealed on earth. All men believe in His 
holiness. Even the devils believe and tremble. 
Let us speak for a moment of the Life of Jesus, 
and rest in the brightness of it. What a per- 
fect circle of radiant qualities meet in Him ! 
so that, whatever form of excellence we think of, 
we find it completely expressed in Him. What 
holy and entire separation from sin we find in 
the Life of Jesus ! Tempted as He was, in ways 
so fierce and so frequent, sin could find no door 
of entrance; the tempter never discovers an 



THE SPLENDID IDEAL. 



205 



unguarded point ; he is always driven back. 
What long-suffering we find in the Life of 
Jesus ! Patient in tribulation, silent under 
provocation, reviling not again, looking even 
with large-hearted compassion upon his igno- 
rant murderers, He is indeed the incarnation 
of long-suffering. What obedience we find in 
the Life of Jesus ! His Father's wish is law 
unto Him, from the beginning to the end. 
His meat is to do the will of Him that sent 
Him, and to finish His work. What sympathy 
we find in the Life of Jesus ! His is the most 
affectionate and tender of lives, never impatient 
of the claims of suffering, never repulsed by the 
offensiveness of disease, most marvellous in His 
power to understand and minister unto the 
griefs of the heart, gentle and reverent toward 
the little children ! What submission we find 
in the Life of Jesus ! He has given himself to 
His work, and He accepts all that comes with 
it — its loneliness, its humiliation, its terrible 
pressure, its final and consummating agonies ! 
What steadfastness we find in the Life of J esus ! 
A glorious, undeviating purpose : whether men 
walk with Him, or walk with Him no longer ; 
though plots are thickening in His path, and 
passionate outbursts, premonitory of the bitter 
end, are breaking forth against Him> — nothing 



206 THE SPLENDID IDEAL, 



can turn His face, once set towards Jerusalem. 
Oh, the perfect life ! Well did St. John say, 
"And the Life was the Light of Men." 1 

It is this, it is even this, which is given us, in 
the splendid ideal, as the thing we are to ex- 
press, to utter, to manifest : " That the Life of 
Jesus may be manifested ; " that His Life, which 
was uttered once in the days of the flesh, as 
the revelation of the Father to men, may be 
uttered again by each one of us as the mani- 
festing of that same Life to those who are 
round about us. This is the will of God con- 
cerning us. This is God's splendid ideal for 
us. This was God's splendid ideal for man at 
the very beginning, when He said, " Let us 
make man in our image, after our likeness," 2 
and when God created man in His own image. 
And God never departs from His ideals. Man 
has become a sinful person, defacing the Di- 
vine image. But God has the same splen- 
did ideal for man fallen which He had for 
man unf alien. And, in Christ, God has taken 
steps to realize in man the accomplishment 
of His long postponed ideal by redeeming 
man, by giving back His Holy Spirit to man, 
and by creating through that Spirit the desire 
in man's heart " to be conformed to the image 

1 St. Jno. i. 4. 2 Gen. I 26, 27, 



THE SPLENDID IDEAL. 207 



of His Son/' 1 that the Life of Jesus may be 
manifested in us and expressed by us. This 
desire is already created in the hearts of many 
of us. We are conscious of the splendid ideal, 
as in a true sense our ideal ; and often, in our 
moments of greatest spiritual elevation, we look 
forward to a time of immortal completeness, 
when we shall be rid of these impediments of 
earthly habit, and these tendencies of earthly 
sin, and when, standing in the blaze of the 
Eternal Light, we shall at last attain the splen- 
did ideal, and manifest in our glorified char- 
acters the Life of Jesus. We connect this 
hope with our Eesurrection, saying with the 
Psalmist, " I shall be satisfied, when I awake, 
with Thy likeness." 2 We connect this hope 
with the manifesting of Christ in His glory, 
saying with St. John, " It doth not yet appear 
what we shall be, but we know that if He is 
manifested we shall be like Him, for we shall 
see Him as He is." 3 And so we chiefly look to 
the future state as the scene of this exhibition 
of the Life of Jesus in ourselves, the scene 
where the splendid ideal shall at last be realized. 

But this is not the point which is pressed 
upon our attention in this scripture open be- 
fore us ; this far-off scene of future glory is 

1 Rom. viii. 29. 2 Ps. xvii. 15. * 1 Jiio. iii. 2, R. V. 



208 THE SPLENDID IDEAL. 



not the scene to which we are advised to limit 
the splendid ideal. On the contrary, there re- 
mains one part of our text yet to be considered, 
which brings to the heart a sense of joy and 
hope. We are told that the scene of this pro- 
posed manifestation is at once the most un- 
likely and the most appropriate scene for such 
a manifestation. That the Life of Jesus may 
be manifested, where and when ? Not in our 
immortal spirits after they are delivered from 
this body of death. Not in that illustrious 
hour of awaking and of glory when we shall 
see Him as He is, and when perfectly reflecting 
His likeness in the mirror of a perfected life, we 
shall be absolutely conformed to His image ; 
not then, but now, to-day, here : " That the 
Life of Jesus may be manifested in our mortal 
flesh." Most unlikely scene for such an exhi- 
bition ! Our reason would say, " Anywhere 
but here is the place for a man to manifest 
in himself the Life of Jesus." In our mortal 
flesh ! our dying flesh ! — what pathetic realism 
in this word ! How perfectly uncertain our life 
is, intensely mortal, subject to death from the 
hour of birth, liable to be cut off in a day, in a 
moment, in the tenth part of a second ! How 
subject to the physical infirmities of the mortal 
state : to pain, with all its ingenious power to 



THE SPLENDID IDEAL. 209 



torment the nerves and wear out the will ; to 
over-fatigue, with the loss of courage and the 
lack of self-control which attend upon it ; to 
old age with its decaying faculties ! And how 
compassed about is our mortal flesh with the 
influence of that of which death is the wages 
and the offspring, even sin ! Sin is in our 
mortal body, and in our mortal life., through 
and through. The temptations of our mortal 
flesh, how terrible they are ! The tendencies un- 
governable by the will, the base desires of the 
flesh, the covetous desires of the eye, the un- 
spiritual vainglory of life, — how utterly unlike 
are these to the Life of J esus, and how unlikely 
is such a scene as this of our mortal flesh as a 
scene in which to express, to manifest, to have 
our life become an utterance of the Life of 
Jesus! "Oh, let us be delivered," we cry, 
" from this body of death ; let us put off this 
mortal flesh and all the infirmities and unholi- 
nesses which have attached themselves to us ; 
let us rise to the immortal state, to the Eternal 
Light, and there we will manifest the Life of 
Jesus." " Not so," saith the Spirit, " but now is 
the splendid ideal offered you : that the Life of 
Jesus may be manifested in your mortal flesh." 

And as the Spirit presses the splendid ideal 
upon us, we think another thought. This life 



210 



THE SPLENDID IDEAL. 



of our mortal flesh may seem a most unlikely 
scene for the exhibition of the Life of Jesus, 
but is it not the most appropriate of all possible 
scenes for such an exhibition ? Where ought 
the Life of J esus to be manifested and honored 
if not in that mortal flesh which He took upon 
Himself that He might endure therein His own 
humiliation, and share therein our burden and 
our temptation ? " Forasmuch, then, as the 
children are partakers of flesh and blood, He 
also Himself likewise took part of the same." 1 
It was in our mortal flesh Jesus became In- 
carnate. It was in our mortal flesh Jesus was 
tempted. It was in our mortal flesh Jesus 
groaned in agony, while drops of blood coursed 
downward to the ground. It was in our mortal 
flesh Jesus was raised to the Cross, a spectacle 
of derision before the eyes of the world. It was 
in our mortal flesh He died and was hidden in 
the grave. It was in our mortal flesh, changed 
with the Kesurrection change, He rose and as- 
cended up on High, leading Captivity captive, 
and giving gifts unto men. Is it not right, 
then, that the Life of Jesus should be ex- 
pressed, uttered, manifested, here and now, in 
our mortal flesh? While all things are as thev 
are, — - full of confusion, overwork, sinful desire, 

i Heb. ii. 14. 



THE SPLENDID IDEAL. 211 



strain, incompleteness, noise, vanity, sickness, 
sorrow, change, — this is the splendid ideal 
which the Holy Spirit gives to every one of 
us who is also one of His. 

It is the splendid ideal for the mother in her 
home ; that, amidst the nameless cares and irri- 
tations, the perpetual arrears of unfinished 
work, the broken rest, the wearied nerves, the 
Life of Jesus, in its sweet patience, its match- 
less sympathy, its holy wisdom, may be mani- 
fested in her mortal flesh. 

It is the splendid ideal for the man of busi- 
ness that, amidst the baseness of unholy minds 
and the profane wit of unclean imaginations, 
he may show the purity of Christ's thought in 
his own ; that, amidst the unscrupulous dealers 
in the rights of others, and the cunning lovers 
and makers of lies, he may utter the truth and 
the honor of Jesus in every verbal engagement, 
in every written promise ; that, amidst the free 
indulgence of intemperate appetites, and the 
unmanly neglect of home, he may show the 
simplicity and self-control and chivalry of Jesus. 
So shall the Life of Jesus be manifested in his 
mortal flesh. 

It is the splendid ideal for those who enter 
society that, amidst the scenes where conversa- 
tion is of the lightest, and where by common 



212 



THE SPLENDID IDEAL. 



consent seriousness is out of form, they, if they 
enter, may show the earnestness and helpful- 
ness of Him Who thought life too great and 
grand and high, at any time, to close His eyes 
against its truth. 

It is the splendid ideal for the boy in his 
boyhood that, when the whisperings of dis- 
honor and the invitations of secret wrong are in 
his ears, he may stand unabashed on the side of 
Jesus, and dare to be separate from sinners ; 
that, when the unstable wills of others are bend- 
ing and swaying in the gusts of impulse, he 
may walk erect in the earnestness of Jesus, and 
manifest in his mortal flesh the steadfast life of 
his Great Head-master. Amen. 



XIII. 

THE MOUNTAIN-CLIMB OF LIFE. 



XIII. 

THE MOUNTAIN-CLIMB OF LIFE. 

Preached on the First Sunday in the Year 1891. 

" Wait on the Lord ; be of good courage, and He shall 
strengthen thine heart : wait, I say, on the Lord." — Psalm 
xxvii. 14. 

On this first Lord's Day afternoon of the 
New Year, the sense of the beginning still 
lingers with us. We are still getting ready 
to climb the mountain ; this Matterhorn of a 
New Year, which springs from the base, where 
we are standing, up and up into the silent 
blue. We are seeing if there is meat and 
drink in our wallets, against the biting hunger 
of that upper air ; if our staves are well shod 
with iron, against that slanting sea of glass, 
up whose billows of ice we shall have to climb : 
if our guide-ropes are all stout and ready, 
against the time when none shall dare proceed 
except he be tied to the bold, experienced 
Guide Who goes before him. 

And there may be time for one more word 
before we start ; one last caution to each 



216 THE MOUNTAIN-CLIMB OF LIFE. 



mountain-climber, which shall be better to him 
than the food and drink in his wallet, and 
better than an iron-shod alpenstock, if he will 
say it to himself, again and again and again, 
when the steepness, and the slipperiness, and 
the solitude, and the space, and the roar of the 
flying avalanche, and the heart-searching frost 
made him afraid : " Wait on the Lord ; be of 
good courage, and He shall strengthen thine 
heart : wait, I say, on the Lord." 

I say, if he will say it to himself. As he 
climbs the Matterhorn of another year he may 
or he may not be given the chance to say this 
to any other soul. If he has the chance to 
speak this word of courage to another, so much 
the better for that other and for him : but he 
must say it to himself ; each must say it for 
himself to himself, and say it often ; say it 
to his own soul as if he were speaking it 
to another : " Wait on the Lord ; wait, I say, 
on the Lord." In the Psalm, these words are 
not an address to others, they are the words of 
the Psalmist speaking to his own soul as he 
climbs the steep ascent. They are a soliloquy ; 
a life talking to itself, and telling itself how 
and where cometh strength into it : " Wait 
on the Lord ; be of good courage, and He shall 
strengthen thine heart : wait, I say, on the 



THE MOUNTAIN-CLIMB OF LIFE. 217 



Lord." Herein is the strength of these words 
for us to-day, — that they are a soliloquy ; 
words which we may all speak to ourselves 
now, and which each one shall need to say to 
himself many, many times, I believe, before 
this mountain-climb of the year is over. 

What means it, this twice-given reminder to 
" wait on the Lord " ? Do we catch any real 
point in the word " wait " which is specially 
strong and suggestive at this particular time ? 
I incline to think that, when we analyze our 
own conception of the meaning of " Wait on 
the Lord," many of us do not find anything 
particularly clear, or particularly suggestive of 
courage and a strengthened heart. Some may 
have thought of " Wait on the Lord " as mean- 
ing about the same thing as " Wait for the 
Lord," " be patient ; " but that grace of pa- 
tience, however noble and sweet it is, is not 
the same as waiting on the Lord ; it has not 
the 66 action " in it. And some may have 
thought of waiting on the Lord as simply 
meaning prayer : " Continue in prayer." But, 
however grand and true a thought prayer may 
be, it does not convey that peculiar charm of 
meaning which is reserved for us in this word 
" wait," — a meaning which, when Hebrew 
study first discovered it to me, and ever since, 



218 THE MOUNTAIN-CLIMB OF LIFE. 



has opened in my life a fresh fountain of joy 
and strength, and has engraved upon my im- 
agination a picture of aspiring and glorious ac- 
tion. There are eleven different words in the 
Hebrew tongue which, in our common version 
of the Old Testament, are translated by the sin- 
gle English equivalent " wait." All shades of 
meaning which can be attached to " waiting " 
appear in these eleven words, — the silence of 
waiting, the earnestness of waiting, the hope- 
fulness of waiting, the watchfulness of waiting, 
the slavery or servitude of waiting, and others. 
But when we come to the word mr we find 
a totally new conception, which leads us far 
from all these other ideas of waiting ; and, 
indeed, causes us to feel that "wait," as we 
commonly understand the word, is by no means 
the most vivid translation of which the He- 
brew verb is susceptible. The root of njj 
means a rope ; and the distinctive meaning of 
the verb is to tie fast a rope. The two most 
conspicuous examples of the use of this par- 
ticular verb — meaning, " to tie fast a rope " 
— are, one of them, the text for to-day : " Wait 
on the Lord ; be of good courage, and He 
shall strengthen thine heart : wait, I say, on 
the Lord ; " and the other is that text in 
Isaiah which to some of us holds in itself the 



THE MOUNTAIN-CLIMB OF LIFE. 219 



very essence of life's hope, — " They that wait 
upon the Lord shall renew their strength ; they 
shall mount up with wings as eagles ; they 
shall run and not be weary, and they shall 
walk and not faint." 1 If now, instead of using 
the general and indeterminate word " wait," 
which is open to many different interpreta- 
tions, we use the specific expression^ " to tie 
fast a rope " (which gives the distinctive mean- 
ing of the Hebrew), behold what a light, be- 
hold what a blessed fulness of thought, is 
created by these two magnificent texts of God's 
word, — " They that are tied fast to the Lord 
shall renew their strength : they shall mount 
up with wings as eagles ; they shall run and 
not be weary, and they shall walk and not 
faint." " Tie thyself fast to the Lord ; be of 
good courage, and He shall strengthen thine 
heart ; tie thyself, I say, fast to the Lord." 

As we utter these words a picture flashes 
before our eyes, and engraves itself upon the 
imagination, — the mountain of the Matterhorn 
in Switzerland, rising in magnificent propor- 
tions through chaotic masses of lower hills, 
and lifting its awful front into the upper at- 
mosphere. On its sides are the broad curve 
of the glacier track, the jagged darkness of 

1 Isa. xl. 31. 



220 THE MOUNTAIN-CLIMB OF LIFE. 



the crevasse, and the glittering billows of the 
slanting sea of ice. At the base stands a 
company of travellers and guides, about to 
begin the ascent, They are making their last 
inventory of equipments. There are blankets 
for the shelter, there are wallets filled with 
meat and drink. There are staves spiked with 
iron. " Is not this enough?" say the ardent 
travellers. " Why be burdened with those 
coils of rope ? " And the guides, whose life- 
training has been upon the ice mountains, 
answer, with the grave smile of experience, 
" Travellers, leave behind you, if you choose, 
blankets, wallets, and staves, and without them 
you might have dim chance of living to go up ; 
but leave not these ropes, which shall tie us to 
you, and you to us ! There are places yonder 
where no inexperienced head could bear the 
dizziness, and no inexperienced heart could 
surmount the terror, but for the sense of secu- 
rity which this rope shall give, that ties you to 
your guide. He will go before you and lead 
you, always upward; the drawing of this rope 
will itself assure you of the way ; the sense 
that this rope is around his life as well as 
around your life will brace you with the feel- 
ing of companionship, even at that steepest 
and most awful point where he, being directly 



THE MOUNTAIN-CLIMB OF LIFE. 221 



above you, cannot be seen. And if you slip, 
if your foot misses that narrow notch hacked 
for a footing in the ice, you shall not be 
dashed to pieces a thousand yards below ; he 
has anticipated that slip, — has thrown his 
strength upward against the downward drag, 
and that rope, tightening like a living bond, 
shall hold you up from death." 

So the picture is before us, and each sees, 
in that glittering peril of the Matterhorn, the 
steep ascent of life as it rises upward before 
himself, even from this solemn hour, — up ! 
up ! up ! through days, and weeks, and months ; 
and each sees in the face of a traveller his 
own face ; and each sees in the strong, earnest, 
loving face of a Guide the Face of Christ. 
And the Guide says : " Leave anything behind 
sooner than that bond with which you can tie 
yourself fast to Me. Tie fast to Me, and I will 
strengthen your heart : severed from Me, ye 
can do nothing." 1 And the Holy Spirit, whis- 
pering the thought, which seems like our own 
thought, enables us to say to ourselves, in 
most earnest soliloquy, as we look up the steep 
ascent, " Tie thyself fast to the Lord ; be of 
good courage, and He shall strengthen thine 
heart : tie thyself, I say, fast to Christ." 

1 St. John xv. 5, margin. 



222 THE MOUXTAIX-CLIMB OF LIFE. 



Let us for a moment stand looking up tliis 
mountain of life, and consider what it means 
to be tied fast to Christ, with a bond that 
encircles our life and encircles His Life, and 
stretches from Him to us. 

It means for us, as for the climber on the 
Matterhorn, Leadership. If you have ever 
climbed a steep and dangerous mountain you 
will understand how nothing is easier than to 
be bewildered and to lose the way on a per- 
fectly Of) en. treeless mountain. The tremen- 
dous angle of elevation prevents you from look- 
ing far above you, and the perils which attend 
every placing of a hand or of a foot demand 
your eyes and your thought on every foot of 
ground immediately before your face. What 
leadership, then, is in the drawing of that rope, 
as the guide, knowing well his path, turns here 
and there, and the rope pulls now to right 
and now to left ! You can follow without look- 
ing. You do not ask to see the distant scene. 
While the drawing of that rope continues, " one 
step enough for you ! " Ah. he who ties fast 
to Christ has that leadership ! Life is too steep 
for us to see far above the point at which we 
stand, and the needs and perils of the instaDt 
compel to a great extent the localization of 
thought on immediate incidents and decisions, 



THE MOUNTAIN-CLIMB OF LIFE. 223 



without much length of view. But tied to 
Christ we are drawn, most marvellously drawn, 
up the right path ; and each step we take, 
though we can see so little beyond it, is a 
step in the right direction. 

To tie fast to Christ means for us, as for 
the climber on the Matterhorn, Companion- 
ship. We may not see Him, because He is so 
directly above us ; but we hear the Upward 
Calling, and we feel the Upward Drawing, and 
the electric current of His Strength flows down 
into our weakness, and we are of good cour- 
age, for He has strengthened our heart. Oh, 
how mysterious and how precious is that sense 
of companionship which it becomes possible 
for us to have with an unseen and absent 
friend, if we are conscious that one bond of 
unconquerable remembrance and unity encir- 
cles both our lives and reaches from one to the 
other ! We are not alone, — we cannot be 
alone ! Greater even than this is that reassur- 
ing truth of Companionship given in hours of 
peril, of vague depression, of unsupportable 
fatigue, to those who are tied fast to Christ. 
Through the comfort of sacraments, and the 
tender joy of prayer, and the marvellous direct- 
ness of the Word, and the treasures of memory, 
there come, as through the guide-rope of the 



224 THE MOUXTAIX-CLIMB OF LIFE. 



Alpine climber, bracing assurances from Him 
Who has gone on ahead. 

To tie fast to Christ means for us, as for 
the climber on the Matterhorn, Eescue. Even 
he whose face is set upward may make the 
false step. Benumbed by cold, unbalanced by 
nervous tension, terrified by stupendous peril, 
he may set his foot unsteadily in the socket 
cut for him by his guide. And he may slip ! 
But all is not lost. A strength above his 
own. and joined to his own. has foreseen and 
prepared itself for this shock ; and the rope 
is strong enough to bear him. even when 
hanging in utter dependence. And he who is 
tied to Christ may in an unguarded hour fal- 
ter and slip. But all is not lost : *•' Though 
he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down." 1 
He hangs in utter dependence upon the mercy 
of Christ : but the bond is strong, and saves 
him from death, and sets his feet upon the 
rock once more. 

•• Be of good courage, and He shall strengthen 
thine heart." 

If the traveller should insist on leaving the 
guide-rope behind, — should say to the guide. 

My staff and my wallet are enough for me ; 
go you on and I will follow/' — he might say, 

1 Ps. xxsrii. 24. 



THE MOUNTAIN-CLIMB OF LIFE. 225 



indeed, to his own heart, " Be of good cour- 
age," but would the words mean much more 
than emptiness by the side of the perils of the 
Matterhorn? Would they not rather show 
that he had no conception of those perils, — 
no conception of the tests of courage which he 
must meet ? So it seems of those who talk 
of climbing this dread mystery of years apart 
from any living bond tying them fast to Jesus 
Christ, who say to Christ : " Go You on ahead 
as an Example. I will follow You ; but I do 
not need You, and I will not be tied to You. 
My staff is enough for me ; I will choose my 
path, and keep up my courage." What do 
such words show but that they who utter them 
have failed to comprehend the height of the 
mountain and the hardness of the way ? 

Let him who thinks to climb the Matterhorn 
with no rope tying him to his guide, and who, 
repudiating that bond, still says to his own 
heart " Be of good courage," let him count up 
some of the tests that he must stand in going 
up the mountain. What are the characteristic 
tests of courage in the greater efforts of moun- 
tain-climbing? There is the loneliness. There 
is probably no solitude on the earth which 
under certain circumstances is so crushing and 
saddening as the solitude in a place of peril 



226 THE MOUNTAIN-CLIMB OF LIFE. 



on a great mountain. It is indeed awful ! Not 
a bird chirps, not a leaf rustles. You might 
call and no one would answer you ; you might 
fall and He groaning, no one would run to 
you ; you might die, no one would bury you. 
It is a tremendous test of courage. But there 
is greater loneliness, and more exhausting de- 
pression, for those who wander on the Mat- 
terhorn of life alone. To some natures, this 
terrible, hungering: loneliness comes most OYer- 
whelmingly in the days of youth ; and if the 
young heart be not tied to that only sure 
Guide, the Lord Jesus Christ, it is likely to 
lose all courage, and perhaps to go far astray. 
There is a wonderful passage in one of the 
letters of Lacordaire which describes, as I 
haYe never elsewhere heard it described, that 
nameless, lonely longing of youth. Every 
time I read that passage I say to myself : 
" How true that is ! he must have known." 
He says : " Eighteen years have barely passed 
over us before we begin to experience long- 
ings whose object is neither the flesh, nor 
love nor ambition ; nothing', in short, that 
can take shape or name. Wandering, whether 
in lonely solitudes, or amid the splendid streets 
of great cities, the youth is weighed down by 
objectless aspiration : he turns from the real- 



THE MOUNTAIN-CLIMB OF LIFE. 227 



ities of life as from a prison which stifles his 
heart ; he seeks from all that is vaguest, most 
uncertain, — from the evening clouds, the au- 
tumn winds, the fallen leaves, — sensations 
which feed while they wound him. But all 
in vain ; the clouds disperse, the winds lull, 
the leaves decay, without telling him where- 
fore he suffers, without satisfying his soul. 
my soul, why art thou cast down ? Hope 
in God ? Yes, it is God ; it is the Infinite, 
stirring in our twenty-year-old hearts, which 
Christ has touched, but which have carelessly 
strayed from Him, and in which His precious 
grace, failing to produce its supernatural influ- 
ence, now stirs the storm which it alone can 
lull." 1 

Another peril of the Matterhorn is cold ; the 
silent, deadly, stupefying frost, deadening the 
brain as with opiates, relaxing the limbs, para- 
lyzing the will, — death to him who is not tied 
to his guide. Spiritual death to him who is 
not tied to Jesus Christ, when the coldness and 
apathy of one's environment strike to the inner 
being of him who began, in all sincerity, to try 
for the Upward Life. " Be of good courage," 
he Avhispers drowsily to himself ; I can shake 
this off, and in my will-power rise above it ; " 

1 S. Lear's Lacordaire^ p. 30. 



228 THE MOUNTAIN-CLIMB OF LIFE. 



and even as he whispers he falls and sleeps 
the sleep of death. Oh, the warm Strength 
of Christ ! the Vigor of Christ ! the irresistible 
Upwardness of Christ ! That only can pull us 
together, and pull us upward from the languor 
of a frozen life ! 

Another peril of the Matterhorn is the alti- 
tude. As we enter the greater heights the air 
grows thin, the pressure augments, the heart 
pumps like an engine, the lungs draw like 
furnaces. Oh, what a rest to strain that rope 
a little, and let him who is used to travelling 
in this air pull us with his strength ! And 
when the hours come, as they are sure to come, 
when the pressure of living makes a labor of 
existence, when the heart is strained to burst- 
ing, who knows best what relief is ? who has 
the better chance to escape collapse ? — he who 
only knows how to clench his teeth and pant in 
desperation to himself, " Be of good courage ; " 
or he who can test the strength of the bond 
that ties him to Christ, who can draw upon 
Christ's Strength and Christ's Onwardness, say- 
ing to himself, " Be of good courage, and He 
shall strengthen thine heart " ? 

Another peril of the Matterhorn is the ava- 
lanche. Thunder without lightning ; a volley 
of icy stones ; a hissing streak of impacted 



THE MOUNTAIN-CLIMB OF LIFE. 229 



snow — there ! here ! there ! Gone ! All is 
over, — over before we know what has hap- 
pened or why, as with a cruel jerk, the guide 
flung us under the lee of the boulder. But 
he gently lifts us up, his face all grave and 
tender, saying, "I saw it coming. It would 
have killed you. There was nothing for it but 
to throw you (roughly, perhaps, but quickly) 
under the shadow of the rock till the ava- 
lanche went by." Blessed is he who is tied 
to Christ when the avalanche comes. Christ 
will not stop it, nor turn it aside from our 
path ; but He foresees it, and if we are only 
so joined to Him that He can act upon us, 
He will draw us into the cleft of the Eock, 
into the shadow of the mighty Rock, till this 
calamity is overpast. 

x^nother peril of the Matterhorn is the false 
step. He cuts the sockets in the ice, and sets 
His Feet in them. We, clambering after Him, 
set ours where He set His, till in a dizzy mo- 
ment the foot is set unsteadily, — slips. Is all 
over?' Shall the shepherds in the springtime 
find the wreck a thousand yards below? It 
might have been. God knows it might have 
been, but for that dear bond that tied us to 
Him, — that was strong, that held, — and His 
Strength was made perfect in our weakness. 



230 TEE MOCXTAIX-CLIJIB OF LIFE. 



" Saviour., where'er Thy steps I see, 
Dauntless, untired. I follow Thee ; 
Ok. let Thy Hand support me still, 
And lead me to Thy Holy HilL" 

And so we come right back to that point : 
Tie thyself fast to Christ. Tie thyself. I say, 
fast to Christ. Then be of good courage, and 
He shall strengthen thine heart. Severed from 
Him. courage is bravado, and to essay the 
mountain is to tempt Providence. Tied to 
Him by the bands of an imquesrioning faith, 
He "will lead thee up. and He will give His Holy 
Spirit charge concerning thee, to bear thee up 
in His Hands, lest at any time thou dash thy 
foot against a stone. Ameu. 



XIV. 

CHEIST'S KNOWLEDGE OF OUR SIN- 
CERITY. 



XIV. 



CHRIST'S KNOWLEDGE OF OUR SIN- 
CERITY. 

" Thou knowest that I love Thee." — St. John xxi. 17. 

The sweetest, strongest thought a man can 
hold in his heart as he faces life's responsibili- 
ties is this : Christ's knowledge of our sincerity. 
" Thou knowest that I love Thee." It is not 
good for man to be alone. It is not good be- 
cause it is not normal. Self-consciousness, the 
power to know one's self, is but half of per- 
sonality. The other half is communion, the 
power to know another in love- and trust. He 
that has never loved has never lived. " He 
that loveth not, knoweth not God, for God is 
love." 1 

Love is an expressive function ; it implies an 
object exterior to itself, without which love is 
inconceivable. Love is potential communion ; 
communion in the wish if not in the fact. Not 
so ambition : ambition may be strictly self -lim- 
ited, self -centralized, introactive. The man of 

1 1 Jno. iv. 8. 



234 CHRIST KNOWS OUR SINCERITY. 



ambition may care but for himself ; the man of 
affection is, in the nature of the case, up to his 
own measure, whatever it may be, an expressive, 
self-giving life. 

Expression is the language of love : it is 
love's vernacular. But powers and opportuni- 
ties of expression are variable quantities ; may 
sometimes, in rare, golden hours, be commen- 
surate with that emotion of which they seek to 
be the vehicles ; may oftener, by reason of 
weakness and fear, be dwarfish and barren; 
love rising to its highest level of nobleness ; 
expression perversely dwindhng to a common- 
place. 

In such an hour love has still a refuge. Ex- 
pression has been tried and found wanting. 
Dumb when it would be all speech ; common- 
place when it would be glorious ; trite, feeble, 
faulty when it would have uttered the unutter- 
able, — love has still a refuge : " Thou knowest 
that I love Thee." Rising from earth-bound 
powers, from stammering and stunted words, 
from feeble self - justifications, from plaintive 
apologies, love leaps to its heroic ultimatam : 
" Thou knowest that I love Thee." 

So Simon Peter stood before his Risen Lord ; 
and thrice that awful inquisition tore its way, 
like a relentless search-light, through the shad- 



CHRIST KNOWS OUR SINCERITY. 235 



ows and failures of his life : " Simon, son of 
Jonas, lovest thou Me?" What could he say? 
could he appeal to his record, and offer it in 
evidence as a demonstration of his love ? Ah ! 
should he try to speak of this, the memory of 
his own failures would choke him, the stains 
on his record would silence him. For he has as 
his portion a full share of the bitter memories 
of an undisciplined character ; immature pro- 
fessions of fidelity, neutralized over and over 
again by unbalanced words, by jealous, pre- 
sumptuous, unspiritual deeds ; and upon him 
is even now the fresh blight of that immeasur- 
able error when, unmanned by excitement, his 
very life, as he stood in the high priest's pal- 
ace, had seemed to break up under him, as the 
ice breaks up in the spring freshet, and, heed- 
less of consequences, lost to honor, he had repu- 
diated his Master in the open presence of men. 1 
Yes, what could he say, as the search-light 
of the Saviour's inquisition ploughs its way 
through the shadows of ids life : " Simon, son 
of Jonas, lovest thou Me ? " Could he appeal 
to his companions to speak for him, and testify 
on his behalf? Had they not known all the 
weakness of the undisciplined past, — the lapse 
from faith when called by Jesus to walk on the 

1 St. Jno. xviii. 15-27. 



236 CHRIST KNOWS OUR SINCERITY. 



water of the Sea of Galilee ; 1 the jealous con- 
tention over who should be the greatest ; 2 the 
presumptuous, unseemly rebuke spoken to Je- 
sus at the Last Supper ; 3 the drowsy failure in 
Gethsemane, when the one request of the ago- 
nizing Jesus went unheeded, and sleep de- 
stroyed the vigil of sympathy for which Christ 
longed ? 4 Had they not known the story of 
the last desertion, — its desperate, threefold in- 
sistence, its cowardice, its profanity ? 5 How 
then could he ask them to testify, when so 
much in the open story of his life spoke against 
his love for Jesus ? . 

Yet, in the face of these memories of an un- 
disciplined character which forbade the appeal 
to his record and the appeal to his friends, this 
man has still a refuge, for he is a lover of 
Christ. The Saviour's question does not con- 
vict this man of insincerity, however it may 
convict him of inconsistency and pierce him 
with penitence. " Lovest thou Me ? " The 
words, in themselves so gentle, are keen as a 
surgeon's knife, piercing even to the dividing 
asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints 
and marrow, laying bare the thoughts and in- 



1 St. Matt. xiv. 28-31. 
3 St. Jno. xiii. 4-9. 
& St. Mk. xiv. 71. 



2 St. Lk. xxii. 24-31. 
4 St. Mk. xiv. 37. 



CHRIST KNOWS OUR SINCERITY. 237 



tents of the heart ; but, like the surgeon's 
knife upon the living subject, the pain they 
cause shows there is life and not death. u Lov- 
est thou Me ? " It is an appeal, not to his rec- 
ord, but to himself ; not to his witnesses, but 
to himself ; and the appeal is answered in the 
depths of the man's self-consciousness. He 
cannot deny his record ; there it stands, fraught 
with inconsistencies, failures, weakness ; he can- 
not, it may be, overcome the prejudice in the 
minds of others which these inconsistencies, 
failures, weaknesses may have excited against 
him ; but in those depths of self-consciousness, 
where he knows himself as no fellow-man can 
know him, there is that which meets the ques- 
tion of Jesus, " Lovest thou Me ? " with an* un- 
faltering " Yes." How shall he substantiate 
and prove that love ? He cannot prove it from 
his record, blemished and discolored with many 
a failure ; he cannot prove it from the vouch- 
ers of his friends, for they know too well how 
again and again he has been weighed in the 
balance of trial and found wanting. He can- 
not prove it by plaintive attempts to apologize 
for or to minimize past failures. An intuition 
tells him that were to weaken, not to strengthen, 
his case. But, on the other hand, he cannot 
deny himself ; he cannot discredit his own self- 



238 CHRIST KNOWS OUR SINCERITY. 



consciousness. Within him is that which to 
the Saviour's question, " Lovest thou Me?" 
returns an unfaltering " Yes." In his self- 
consciousness he knows that he loves Christ. 
And to prove that love he has still one refuge, 
one appeal left, — the appeal to Him before 
Whom he now stands face to face, and from 
Whom has come the question, " Lovest thou 
Me?" So love leaps to its heroic ultimatum, 
and discarding arguments, apologies, and ref- 
uges of words, appeals to Him " to Whom 
all hearts are open, all desires known, and from 
Whom no secrets are hid ; " " Thou knowest 
all things : Thou knowest that I love Thee." 

" Thou knowest that I love Thee." It is a 
blessed hour for the Christian when he real- 
izes that he does possess this last and greatest 
refuge of love, this final court of appeal : 
Christ's knowledge of our sincerity. For, as 
we attempt to live our lives in the world to-day, 
expressing the best that we know, most of us 
encounter profound discouragements. We en- 
counter, to a greater or less extent, that pre- 
vailing sentiment of modern life which may be 
called scepticism of character. Scepticism ex- 
ercises itself by no means exclusively upon God 
and the Word of God. In an age like this, 
severely critical and severely competitive, men 



CHRIST KNOWS OUR SINCERITY. 239 



doubt each other as intuitively as they doubt 
God, and scepticism of character pervades so- 
ciety. I am sure I simply state a fact, which 
must have been observed by every person of 
experience, in stating that this is in no sense 
a confiding" age. The spirit of the world is a 
spirit of alertness, ready at any instant and 
in any quarter to ripen into suspicion, Scep- 
ticism of character is openly declared by many 
to be a qualification for success. To be on 
one's guard against others is become a canon 
of business. Professions of sincerity are not 
ranked at a high valuation ; and apart from 
evidence, the name of Christian is not held to 
guarantee character. 

In attempting to live our lives in the world 
to-day, expressing the best that we know, we 
encounter the difficulty of making our truest 
self intelligible to others. There are so many 
conventional restrictions to prevent the expla- 
nation of motives, there is such pressure and 
haste of living burdening the life of almost 
every one, there is such a tangled network of 
opinions lying upon the face of society, it is 
indeed difficult to make one's self intelligible. 
Motives which to us are clear as the day are 
to others dubious or unintelligible ; conduct 
which to us appears to utter one thing, to an- 



240 CHRIST KNOWS OUR SINCERITY. 



other appears to utter the opposite ; till to ex- 
plain one's self becomes one of the fine arts of 
living. 

In attempting to live, we are often spoil- 
ing our own work by incongruous temper, or 
incongruous conduct. We misrepresent our- 
selves oftener than others misrepresent us. It 
is our own foibles, our own blemishes of temper, 
our own false steps, which help to make our lives 

an enigma to others. It is with our own fool- 
ed 

ish hand the interrogation-point is often dashed 
in after life's most earnest utterances. These 
are tremendous discouragements, silencing dis- 
couragements. They sometimes shake courage 
to its foundations ; they fill the heart with bit- 
terness and agitation ; they scatter the tender 
uprisings of holy purpose, and throw us back 
in confusion and sorrow. We feel that others 
doubt us, look askance at us, point at us be- 
hind our backs, or smile with scepticism over 
our confession of faith in Jesus Christ and our 
vows of discipleship. And the sting of this 
bitterness is in the thought that we are discred- 
iting a deeper selfhood which, beneath these 
variabilities of temper, these inconsistencies of 
speech and conduct, these futile attempts at 
self-expression, is after all the greatest and the 
truest part of us. We know that we are sound 



CHRIST KNOWS OUR SINCERITY. 241 



at the core ; we know that when, through all 
the shadows of fault and deficiency, Christ's 
great question, " Lovest thou Me ? " searches 
down into our depths, there is that which gives 
back the unfaltering answer, " Yes." But can 
we demonstrate this love so that it will be be- 
lieved ? Can we find anywhere a basis for a 
new beginning in which our confidence, shaken 
by failure and misunderstanding, can once more 
lift itself up into joy ? Blessed is he who real- 
izes in such an hour that he still has left love's 
last and greatest refuge, Christ's knowledge of 
our sincerity. " Thou knowest that I love 
Thee." Whatever my own poor, faulty words 
and ways may say to others, awakening in their 
minds doubt of my sincerity ; whatever the ver- 
dict of others may be concerning me ; what- 
ever my own memory holds up before me of 
inconsistency and error, — " Thou knowest that 
I love Thee>' 

" Thou knowest all things. Thou knowest 
that I love Thee." As we dwell upon this an- 
swer of Simon Peter to the Eisen Lord, some 
great thoughts come from it and speak to us 
who are Christians. 

It speaks to us of the forgiveness of sins. 
There is such a thing as a life entering into 
closest union with the Risen Lord only through 



242 CHRIST KNOWS OUR SINCERITY. 



the mystery of forgiven sin. That was a won- 
drous parable spoken by the Master to another 
Simon; let us hear it: "There was a certain 
creditor which had two debtors ; the one owed 
five hundred pence, the other fifty, and when 
they had nothing to pay, he frankly forgave 
them both. Tell Me, therefore, which of them 
will love him most ? Simon answered and said, 
I suppose that he, to whom he forgave most. 
And Jesus said, Thou hast rightly judged." 1 
And I suppose that the life which says with 
deepest meaning, " Thou knowest that I love 
Thee," the life in which love for Christ is a 
sentiment so deep it cannot explain itself in 
words, but can only appeal to Christ's own 
knowledge of its sincerity, is the life that 
most fully realizes how it has tried the patience 
of Christ by the shortcomings of an un- 
disciplined character ; how it has disappointed 
the expectations of Christ by weakness when 
He wanted strength, by denial when He 
wanted brave and loving acknowledgment; 
and how over all its long years of incom- 
pleteness Jesus has spread the covering of 
His forgiveness. Yes, through the mystery 
and the marvel of the forgiveness of our sins, 
through His patience, through the sorrow on 
1 St. Lk. vii. 40-50. 



CHRIST KNOWS OUR SINCERITY. 243 



His Face as He turns and looks upon us when 
in the fever of temptation we are denying Him, 
J esus knits us to Himself ; till, though we still 
are failing and still are faltering, we become 
conscious of a love for Him answering His 
Own, and revealing itself as the deepest and 
truest thing in our nature. 

" Thou knowest that I love Thee." It speaks 
to us of the true depths of fellowship. " Thou 
knowest " : it is the sweet release from the bon- 
dage of verbal explanation. To the stranger 
we must speak guardedly, lest we say too much 
or too little ; we must explain ourselves, lest he 
misconstrue our meaning ; we must call in our 
witnesses, lest he doubt our words ; we must 
plead earnestly in our own defence, lest he 
question our sincerity. To the casual guest 
we must utter the gracious words of courtesy, 
lest he think us rude ; must fill up the mo- 
ments with ready speech, lest he call us dull. 
To Jesus we say, " Thou knowest," and feel 
that in saying that we have said all. " Thou 
knowest ! " It is the word of perfect under- 
standing ; explanations would weaken the elo- 
quence of such love. " Thou knowest ! " It is 
the word of perfect rest. " He will rest in His 
love." 1 It is the word of the Christian when 
worn out with fruitless work : " Master, I have 

1 Zeph. iii. 11. 



244 CHRIST KNOWS OUR SINCERITY. 



toiled all day, all night, and gained nothing, 
but Thou knowest that I love Thee." " Thou 
knowest "is a pillow for an aching head, a 
cordial for a fainting spirit, a sanctuary for 
a hunted and frightened heart. Such is the 
union which a life may realize with the Risen 
Lord. Not a relationship of bondage, as of 
master and servant : " Henceforth I call you 
not servants, for the servant knoweth not what 
his lord doeth ; but I have called you friends, 
for all things that I have heard of My Father 
I have made known unto you." 1 Not a rela- 
tionship of distant, ceremonial worship, but a 
life of tender est fellowship, wherein the vicis- 
situdes of days and years do but bind us more 
closely to that faithful, beloved Friend. We 
grow old along with Him. He stood by us 
when we were children, He walked beside us in 
those freer, lighter days ; He walks beside us 
now, when responsibility like a cross is laid 
upon us, when weariness is oftener with us, 
when broader thoughts and larger works are 
calling us, when thickening clouds of impend- 
ing storm are piling up before us ; with us still, 
with us always, on and on. And in every new 
experience, in every new temptation, in hours 
of strength, in hours of contrition, still we say 
to Him those same words of the deeper, holier 

1 St. Jno. xv. 15. 



CHRIST KNOWS OUR SINCERITY. 245 



fellowship, " Thou knowest all things. Thou 
knowest that I love Thee." 

" Thou knowest, not alone as God, All-knowing ; 

As Man, our mortal weakness Thou hast proved ; 
On earth, with purest sympathies o'erflowing, 

O Saviour, Thou hast wept and Thou hast loved; 
And love and sorrow still to Thee may come, 
And find a hiding-place, a rest, a home." 1 

"Thou knowest that I love Thee." It 
speaks to us of Christ's knowledge of our bet- 
ter self. Day by day we struggle to explain 
ourselves, to live intelligibly, to utter the best 
that is in us. In vain ! short successes alter- 
nate with swift failures. The very words and 
deeds by which we would explain ourselves 
become in our faulty hands like masks and 
disguises. The unreality of living grows in- 
supportable. Sometimes it seems as if lives 
were simply stumbling against one another in 
the dark, so few understand us, so few do we 
understand. We appear at our worst in per- 
verse hours when we would have shown our 
best ; we talk commonplaces when we would 
have spoken the very secrets of God ; we wound 
the friend we sought to help, we grieve the 
life we sought to cheer. We weep with vexa- 
tion over days that are mere comedies of errors, 
or deserts of dulness. The eternal, the glori- 
ous relief from all this is Christ's knowledge of 

1 Miss Borthwick and Mrs. Findlater. 



246 CHRIST KNOWS OUR SINCERITY. 



our better self. Jesus knows. He sees the 
glorious purpose which by some flash of temper 
or by some maladroit word we nullified this 
very morning. He realizes and accepts the 
heaven-soaring prayer which potentially filled 
our spirit when, under the drowning surge of 
weariness, we could pant forth but one breath- 
less ejaculation. He measures the celestial 
ideal of living, which like a city of gold flashes 
continually before our ambition, and fails con- 
tinually before our blundering life. He knows 
us not only as we are, but as we mean to be. 

" All instincts immature, 
All purposes unsure, 
That weighed not as his work, yet swelled the man's amount ; 

" Thoughts hardly to be packed 
Into a narrow act ; 
Fancies that broke through language and escaped ; 
All I could never be, 
All men ignored in me, — 
This I was worth to God, Whose wheel the pitcher shaped." 1 

Thou knowest all things ; all the secret of 
the Father, all the counsel of the Spirit, all the 
life of angels, all the scrolls of eternity : but 
of all Thy boundless knowledge, this only gives 
me courage to come to Thee, and offer Thee 
this day my faulty life : — blessed Saviour, 
" Thou knowest that I love Thee." Amen. 

1 Robert Browning : Rabbi Ben Ezra. 



XV. 

THE EETROSPECT OF TKIAL. 



t 



XV. 



THE RETROSPECT OF TRIAL. 

" O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt ? " — 
St. Matthew xiv. 31. 

This is one of those questions which search 
as with a candle the deep and secret corners of 
our heart. It is like the still, small voice which 
came after the earthquake and after the whirl- 
wind. The force of this question is in its after- 
ness. It is retrospective. It looks backward 
and is a question of fact. It is not prospective 
and theoretical, an inquiry into the possible 
causes of doubt, nor a speculation upon the 
probability that one will act thus and thus 
under given conditions. This question comes 
in after the experience and comments upon it, 
— comes in after we have acted, and asks the 
reason why. " thou of little faith, wherefore 
didst thou doubt ? " It is the retrospect of trial. 
The trial is over ; the strain is taken off ; the 
fever is broken ; the wind has gone down ; 
the sun has come out ; life has righted itself ; 



250 



THE RETROSPECT OF TRIAL. 



Jesus, ever faithful, has kept His word, as 
He always meant to. And we, always ready to 
bound up buoyantly when strain is taken off, 
and to sing joyously the hymns of faith when 
there is nothing in particular to test faith, — we 
would be quite ready to leave that dark experi- 
ence behind, forsaken and forgotten, the doubt, 
the murmuring, the bitterness of soul, all far out 
of sight and out of mind ; we would be ready 
to go merrily on in the safety and the sun- 
shine. But He will not let us. He insists 
that we shall go back and review that experi- 
ence wherein we faltered and failed ; that we 
shall retrace, in solemn retrospect, that un- 
welcome hour when being; weighed we were 
found wanting, and being tested we were 
found unequal to the awful grandeur of the 
experience which He had permitted us to enter 
as one of life's great opportunities. He insists 
on asking, " Why, oh why, in that hard hour, 
when to have believed would have been so 
glorious, when not to have doubted Me would 
have been such an evidence of your trust, 
why did you doubt? " Am I not right in say- 
ing this is one of those questions which search 
as with a candle the deep and secret corners 
of our heart? 

The force of these reflections will appear if 



THE RETROSPECT OF TRIAL. 251 



you will use as an illustration the particular inci- 
dent in the experience of a human soul long 
ago which is partly recorded in our text. I shall 
simply speak of the episode in that stormy night 
which is entirely associated with the Apostle 
Peter, and of which the only account that we 
possess is by the author of the First Gospel. 
When the disciples, toiling on the boisterous 
sea, caught sight of the Figure moving toward 
them through the darkness, very naturally they 
were terrified. Jesus, to allay their fears, called, 
up the wind, as He moved toward them, those 
dear words which have brought comfort to so 
many hearts : " Be of good cheer ; it is I : be 
not afraid." When Peter heard these words 
which identified the Saviour, he prepared for 
himself, with characteristic fearlessness, a new 
and adventurous experience, not contemplated 
by any one else in the boat. I cannot but ad- 
mire (however disappointing was the issue) the 
readiness with which Peter offered himself as 
the pioneer of a new experience. I do not see 
any evidence of boastfulness in his attempt. I 
see only that fearless originality which does not 
hesitate to enlist in a new experience, nor to 
commit one's self to a great risk, merely because 
the experience and the risk may lie out of the 
ordinary course of action. The fact that men 



252 THE RETROSPECT OF TRIAL. 



do not commonly go over vessels' sides, with 
the hope of walking upon the water, is no good 
reason for condemning the man who does it, 
if he is honestly sure that he sees that in 
Christ which draws him out on this new line. 
I think more people in this world perish in 
beaten tracks, and go down with sinking ships, 
than those who come to grief from bravely 
striking out alone upon the awful sea where 
Christ is walking. It is altogether impossible 
for some natures to comprehend how to others 
the risk of a course is no conclusive argument 
against its blessedness, and how the fact that 
most men do not try to walk on water furnishes 
no reason why one man may not try. 

At all events, he presented himself for the 
new experience. " Lord, if it be Thou, bid 
me come unto Thee on the water." And like 
the echo of his own voice came back Christ's 
answer to him, " Come ! " Many times in His 
ministry Christ said to men, " Come." But 
never does it have, for me, quite such a thrill 
in it as here, when He says to Peter, " Come." 
Oh, what there is in that word, when you think 
of it, that " Come " which beckoned a life out 
upon a path that man's foot had never trodden 
before ; which permitted a life to walk where 
every step was on a trackless element, over the 



THE RETROSPECT OF TRIAL. 253 



very abysses of destruction ; which led a life 
beyond the range of all parallel experience, 
and made it the creator of its own prece- 
dents. " Come ! " It is the broad-mindedness 
of Jesus, Who neither sanctions the old because 
it is old, nor bans the new because it is new, but 
blesses any path, new or old, that truly leads 
to Himself. " Come ! " It is the sympathy of 
Jesus, Who can understand every man's life, 
even the aspirations of him who conceives of 
doing that which human experience has de- 
clared impossible, but which has the glory of 
Christ as its goal. " Come ! " It is the fellow- 
ship of Jesus, Who " suffers us to come to Him 
through the waters/' and to stand with Him on 
depths where our only safety is in clinging to 
His Hand. Yes ! when we consider the mys- 
terious originality of some human experiences, 
how some are truly called to launch on un- 
beaten and unfathomed tracks, it is something 
more than precious to think, as we do to-day, 
of Christ standing at the farther end of that 
strange, perilous track, and saying, " Come ! " 
Peter flung himself upon the new experience 
with the courage of that " Come " ringing in 
his ears. He stood upon the depths and they 
opened not under him, and, treading firmly, 
with his eye fastened on Christ, the green wave 
bore him as it had been a floor of malachite. 



254 THE RETROSPECT OF TRIAL. 



And now what are the three factors which 
make this picture such a tremendous soul- 
picture for many of us ? First, you see Peter 
committing himself with the approval of Christ 
to a certain new experience : " When Peter was 
come down out of the ship, he walked on the 
water, to go to Jesus." Second, you see him 
beginning to feel overpoweringly the strain of 
his environment. " When he saw the wind 
boisterous, he was afraid." His was indeed a 
terrible situation at the moment, and when he 
began to consider it, when he lost that highly 
sustained concentration of his thoughts upon 
Christ, and began instead to measure the peril 
of his environment, the strain became overpower- 
ing, and he sank to the level of a commoner life, 
the heroism of a magnificent conception was 
quenched in human terror, — " he was afraid." 
And third, you see, reading between the lines 
of Christ's question, that Peter, faltering then, 
lost unconsciously one of the most splendid 
opportunities of a lifetime. " thou of little 
faith, wherefore didst thou doubt ? " Catch the 
unspeakable regret and sorrow 7 in the Saviour's 
tone : " thou of little faith, why did you 
do it ? Why did you miss your opportunity ? 
I permitted you to come into this experience, 
that you might have the most splendid opening 



THE RETROSPECT OF TRIAL. 255 



for heroic concentration ever offered to you. I 
said 6 Come/ that in this awful hour you might 
unlock the door to a larger life. Why have you 
spoiled it all ? thou of little faith, where- 
fore didst thou doubt ? " My friend, suppose 
you had been standing by Thorwaldsen when 
he was fashioning his statue of St. John ; sup- 
pose you had seen him, full of his heroical ideal- 
ism, complete the noble form, and then at- 
tempt to put upon the face that marvellous up- 
ward look. He tries and fails. He tries again 
and almost attains. Give him an hour more 
and he will have it. Alas ! he falters, he is 
discouraged, an ignoble petulance conquers 
him ; he seizes the mallet and breaks the statue 
in pieces. Had this really been and had 
you really seen this, would you not have 
cried with bitter pain, " thou of little faith, 
wherefore didst thou doubt ? Wherefore didst 
thou falter at the supreme verge of victory ? 
Wherefore basely miss the success of a life- 
time ?" So, I think, Christ cried out when Peter 
missed that one supreme moment of concentra- 
tion and continuance which would have brought 
the victory. I think Christ sorrowed over 
him, as He sorrows over every one of us, when, 
permitted to reach some crucial hour of experi- 
ence in which fidelity and faith will really count 



256 THE RETROSPECT OF TRIAL. 



for something almost if not quite sublime, we 
yield to the strain of our environment, and 
destroy in fear our most immortal opportunity. 
I do not doubt that there may come days, yes, 
hours, in a human experience, when to have 
endured without murmuring or without doubt- 
ing, the strain of one's environment, shall per- 
manently elevate character, and set to glorious 
music all the later years. 

" Wherefore didst thou doubt? " These in- 
tense, reproachful, sorrowing words of Jesus 
have power, when we take them to ourselves, 
and fancy them spoken of ourselves, to start 
within us trains of thought which, in all their 
startling individuality, cannot fully be uttered. 
" Wherefore didst thou doubt ? " The retro- 
spection of this question gives to it no small part 
of its tremendous force. It speaks of the past, 
and with compelling earnestness forces us to look 
back and analyze its weakness. It speaks, not 
of the present, which by some sudden inspira- 
tion, some fire-touch of the Holy Ghost, may 
yet be changed from dulness to glory, but of 
the past, which has slipped from us and has set 
itself in unalterable lines. And so the first 
train of thought it starts, is one which takes 
us back amidst lost opportunities. It reminds 
us that one comes, from time to time, to great 



THE RETROSPECT OF TRIAL. 257 



hours j when the possibility of heroical faithful- 
ness is enormously concentrated ; when the far- 
reaching responsibility of action or of endurance 
r> intensified a hundred fold; when one may 
live a year in one hour, a lifetime in one day. 
It reminds us that we may fail to recognize 
the great meaning of one hour or one day till it 
has passed us by forever ; or that, though con- 
ceiving of its greatness, we may falter under the 
strain of its environment, and not recover till 
the hour, with its fiery, stormy opportunity, has 
gone. Thus the Jewish nation failed to recog- 
nize her great hour when Jesus came. She 
stood in her narrowness, killing the prophets 
and stoning them that were sent unto her, 
until the hour of possibility was passed and her 
house was left unto her desolate. How terrible is 
the sound of Christ's lament over Jerusalem's 
blindness ! " If thou hadst known, even thou, 
at least in this thy day, the things which be- 
long unto thy peace, but now they are hid 
from thine eyes." 1 And thus men and women 
may fail to recognize their great hours, and 
under the imperious strain of passion, or the 
rush of fear, or the paroxysm of doubt, may 
throw away the sublimest things in a lifetime. 
There are great hours — great, that is, ac- 
1 St. Lk. xix. 42. 



258 THE RETROSPECT OF TRIAL. 



cording to their kind — -in many of life's more 
ambitious pursuits ; hours in which the signifi- 
cance of action is immensely great and its con- 
sequences immensely long. I have known of 
men in political life, and of men in financial 
life, realizing with indescribable vexation, after 
its departure, that such an hour had been 
given them, and that through lack of insight 
or through lack of nerve they had failed to 
grasp its meaning. To one in whose estimation 
the making of character and the service of 
Jesus are the supreme ends of living, how bitter 
and how absolutely unavailing is it to realize 
that we have passed in dull unconsciousness, or 
that we have destroyed through fear and doubt, 
one of our greater hours, one of our larger op- 
portunities to ennoble character and to serve 
J esus Christ ! Ah, how easy it is to see the 
greatness of certain hours in the clear, cold 
light of sad retrospection ! How easy it is to 
measure the magnificence of possibilities when 
they have forever passed beyond our reach ! 
We cannot go back to them, cannot live them 
through a second time. They are lost. In 
vain we upbraid ourselves. Why did I doubt ? 
Why did I yield to passion ? Why could I 
not have watched with Christ one hour ? The 
Great Hour flashes back upon us its silent, un- 



THE RETROSPECT OF TRIAL. 259 



attainable, impossible beauty, and Christ says 
to us, " If thou haclst known, even thou, at 
least in this thy day, the things which belong 
unto thy peace, but now they are hid from 
thine eyes." 

Another train of thought which is instantly 
started when one takes these words of the text 
home to one's self has its rise in that " Come " 
which Jesus speaks to Peter. That " Come " is 
a permission, rather than a command. Peter 
got the experience planned for himself, and 
Christ let him drop into it, knowing how much 
more there was in it than Peter counted on, how 
terrible would be the strain of it. Was it un- 
kind of Christ to permit him ? — to say " Come " 
when He might as well have said " Come not" ? 
I think not. It was severe. But only because, 
sooner or later, life must be severe, and in the 
world we must have pressure. If we have or 
have had our hard times, do not let us forget 
how much we had to do in planning the course 
which has unexpectedly developed such terrific 
depths. We wanted to walk the water, and 
Christ said " Come," knowing all the while the 
water was deep enough to drown us. It was not 
unkind. It had to be. This is life, to take con- 
tracts which may be far too large for us ; to step 
out beyond our depth. For thus only comes the 



260 



THE RETROSPECT OF TRIAL. 



possibility of great and crucial hours, great be- 
cause they are terrible, terrible because they 
are great. Do I hear some one deny this ? Do 
I hear some sedate philosopher declare, " Strain 
is unnecessary ; it is the result of wild choices ; 
it ought not to be allowed, people ought to have 
the sense not to get beyond their depth " ? My 
friend, wait. Your turn will come. Your turn 
will come. You have sailed pretty cleverly, 
but some day your swelling sails of compla- 
cency will have to come down with a run, 
and you also will go about and lie to, to ride 
out a gale like the rest of us. Yes ! the great 
" Come " of Jesus permits these experiences 
which constitute, whether we know it or know 
it not, our Great Hours. 

By what sign shall we know these Great 
Hours ? By the sign of the Cross. They come 
to an intellectual mind in the progress of the 
life of faith. You have been living for some 
time in unusual peace, breathing the serene at- 
mosphere of souls whose faith is stronger than 
your own. Suddenly the wind changes, and a 
blast out of the bitter north lowers the temper- 
ature of the soul. What is it ? It is a new 
book you have read which trains a new gun of 
agnosticism against the battlements of faith. It 
is a new friend you have met, whose sneer at 



THE RETROSPECT OF TRIAL. 261 



Christ is sheathed in the velvet of beauteous 
and seducing words. And the chill of the 
bitter wind falls upon you, and freezes the 
Peace of Christ within you. Remember, friend, 
these are your Great Hours. By the sign of 
the Cross you shall know them. 

They come to sensitive natures in the rude 
wrestling- match with this hard-handed world. A 
buffet from one you had called a friend ; a cruel 
slight from the hand that erst rested on your 
own in warmest clasp ; a supercilious sneer ; a 
barbed jest shot from the full quiver of some 
social satirist ; a slander dropped like a blot 
from the pen of some heedless letter- writer, yet 
staining ineffaceably the page on which it falls, 
— have such, or any such, come to you ? Re- 
member, friend, these are your Great Hours. 
By the sign of the Cross you shall know them. 

They come to impetuous natures in the 
hour of intense temptation. When the blood 
is leaping through the veins like a torrent let 
loose upon the hills ; when the imagination is 
white-hot and sensitive as an uncovered nerve ; 
when the din of passion is beating into the 
background every caution, every counsel, every 
command of Christ, — have you lived through 
this? Remember, friend, these are your Great 
Hours. By the sign of the Cross you shall 
know them. 



262 



THE RETROSPECT OF TRIAL. 



They come to the bursting heart of love 
when it looks on the suffering of its beloved, 
powerless to help. When fever is burning 
up the sweet structure of our most precious 
hopes ; when cries of anguish and sobs of 
speechless appeal are issuing from lips that we 
have pressed a thousand times ; when Death, 
like a soulless sculptor, is moulding the altered 
features into the unworldly beauty of the final 
sleep, — - have you lived through this ? Remem- 
ber, friend, these were your Great Hours. By 
the sign of the Cross you shall know them. 

They will come to the awe-stricken spirits of us 
all, as, each in his turn, we shall gird ourselves 
for mortal suffering and prepare for the peril 
of death. Then, when the way before us 
changes from the familiar path of health and 
business to the trackless, sighing wave ; when 
the ship-load of kindred hearts must be for- 
saken, and the pilgrim of the deep must stand 
alone to join the beckoning Lord — then shall 
be our Great Hour. By the sign of the Cross 
we shall know it. 

But there is another train of thought that 
starts from these words, and leads along the 
Ascension Path of Christ to that Life from 
whose heights we shall look back on the Great 
Hours of earth. It no longer becomes difficult 



THE RETROSPECT OF TRIAL. 



263 



to imagine that that Life must be sublimely 
happy for all who have known their Great 
Hours on earth and have lived up to them. 
When the child whom we thought to be dying 
sits at our table once again, brown with sunny 
health, what bliss it is to remember that in the 
darkest hours of the illness we breathed out to 
God our deepest belief in His wisdom and His 
love ! When the full assurance of spiritual faith 
is put into our hands like an overflowing cup, 
what grandeur is in the memory that, amidst 
the most sterile wastes of a sceptical environ- 
ment, we denied not the Blessed Lord ! When 
the friend whose long silence was unaccounted 
for speaks again the same, deep, changeless 
word of faithfulness, how peaceful is the joy of 
remembering that we believed when belief was 
all we had ! And when the Life of Faith is 
ended and the Life of Sight begins ; when we 
see as we are seen, and know as we are known ; 
when the stone is rolled away from all hidden 
things, and the buried mysteries believed in 
and hoped for troop out into the light, — will 
not Joy's coronet of joy be to remember that 
when all was darkest and stormiest, we walked 
on the moving waters with nothing to guide us, 
nothing to uphold us but faith in Him Who had 
appeared to us in the storm, and Who had said 
to our adventurous spirit " Come " ? Amen. 



XVI. 

THE FAITHFUL COMPANION. 



XVI. 



THE FAITHFUL COMPANION. 

" And yet I am not alone." — St. John xvi. 32. 

The theme of our discourse is The Faith- 
ful Companion. As Christ, amidst the toils 
and sorrows of His laborious ministry, was con- 
tinually revived by the companionship of the 
Eternal Father, insomuch that He could say to 
His dearest earthly friends, " Ye shall be scat- 
tered, every man to his own, and shall leave 
Me alone, and yet I am not alone, for the 
Father is with Me," so we, who by faith have 
known that Blessed Saviour, are permitted to 
enjoy His companionship amidst the trying 
solitariness of personal experience, and can say 
in life's loneliest hour, " And yet I am not 
alone." 

We enter our theme through those opening 
words, "and yet." They are words of won- 
drous, pathetic eloquence. More properly we 
should speak of them as one word. In the 
Greek there is but one word, the simple con- 
junction, xcu — " and." But it is invested, by 



268 



THE FAITHFUL COMPANION. 



reason of the emotion in the speaker's heart, 
with a special significance, which is described 
in the technical language of Greek syntax as 
the force of " rhetorical emphasis." Instead of 
being a mere ordinary conjunction, connecting 
two clauses of speech without reflecting the 
substance of those clauses, there is injected 
into it, from the burning heart of the speaker, 
the fire, the passion of a contrast, an affecting 
contrast, which the speaker realizes with deep 
emotion : " And yet I am not alone." This 
emotional use of the conjunction, by which it 
becomes the expression of an affecting con- 
trast, has become, to all of us, a familiar form 
of daily speech. For life is one tissue of 
amazing contrasts and thrilling surprises : the 
unexpected is forever happening ; resultant 
facts are continually contradicting probabilities. 
We are always recording contrasts; always 
finding life other than it seemed likely to be ; 
always readjusting things with our one word, 
" and yet," which can be spoken in all tones, 
from a song to a groan. Who has not said 
such words as these : " It was such a precious, 
beautiful fife, so needed on earth, and yet God 
has taken it away." " He seems to have every- 
thing that heart could wish, and yet he is so 
restless and unhappy." " She has so much to 



THE FAITHFUL COMPANION. 269 



worry and depress her, and yet she is so stead- 
fast and strong." . " It was such a true, inspir- 
ing friendship, and yet the friends are thrust 
apart." " He seems such a lover of truth, and 
yet he refuses to believe that Jesus is Divine." 
" I have no wit or wisdom to see the path before 
me, and yet God keeps me calm." 

Christ, when on earth, seems to have been 
impressed with the fact that life is a tissue of 
contrasts, and the special use of the conjunc- 
tion, of which an example is afforded in our 
text, is very frequently found in those of His 
sayings recorded by St. John, such for example 
as these : " I told you, and yet ye believed 
not." 1 " I honor My Father, and yet ye do 
dishonor Me." 2 " We speak that we do know 
and testify that we have seen, and yet ye receive 
not our witness." 3 " Have not I chosen you 
twelve, and yet one of you is a devil ? " 4 " Did 
not Moses give you the law, and yet none of 
you keepeth the law ? " 5 Generally, as these 
quotations indicate, He was remarking that life 
does not come up to the level of its possibilities, 
and constantly contradicts its antecedent prob- 
abilities. But our text is a great, a joyous ex- 
-» 

1 St. Jno. x. 25. 2 St. Jno. viii. 49. 

3 St. Jno. iii. 11. 4 st. Jno. vi. 70. 

6 St. Jno. vii. 19. 



270 THE FAITHFUL COMPANION. 



ception to the prevailing sadness of the utter- 
ances just quoted. He is speaking of the lone- 
liness of His Personal Experience, — a loneli- 
ness shortly to be intensified by the desertion of 
His followers. He has drawn a dark picture of 
that approaching, that impending desertion : 
" Behold, the hour cometh, yea is now come, 
that ye shall be scattered, every man to his own, 
and shall leave Me alone ; " when suddenly, 
like a broad bar of golden sunshine thrust out 
through the purple folds of an impending 
cloud, He utters that wondrous "conjunction 
of rhetorical emphasis," that symbol of contrast 
between the darkness of that which might be 
expected, and the brightness, the peace, the 
comfort of that which actually is : " Ye shall 
leave Me alone ; and yet, and yet, I am not 
alone, for the Father is with Me." 

It is possible to realize in some slight degree 
the meaning which these words had for the 
Heart of Jesus. " And yet I am not alone." 
When we reflect for a moment upon the lone- 
liness of Christ's Personal Experience in the 
days of His bodily sojourning upon the earth, 
we pass by such an obvious cause of loneli- 
ness as the fact that in manhood He to W horn 
a home would have been, as it is to us, a haven 
of rest, had no home ; that, whilst the humbler 



THE FAITHFUL COMPANION. 



271 



creatures of nature, the foxes and the birds, 
had their burrows and their nests, He, the 
Son of Man " (to use His Own words), " had 
not where to lay His Head." 1 We turn to 
those more profound conditions which, by their 
keener edge, wounded more terribly His suf- 
fering Spirit, and darkened His Personal Ex- 
perience with the sorrow of loneliness. The 
insensibility of Israel and the blindness of the 
world made His daily path a path of intense 
loneliness. Twice does St. John use this pa- 
thetic conjunction of rhetorical emphasis in 
dwelling upon this idea. "He was in the 
world," he says, " and the world was made by 
Him, and yet the world knew Him not." 2 " He 
came unto His Own, and yet His Own received 
Him not." 3 Have we not faculties which to 
some imperfect extent permit us to realize how 
the insensibility of Israel and the blindness of 
the world thrust continually into Christ's affec- 
tionate and desiring Heart the anguish of lone- 
liness ? Coming to the world with no other 
purpose than to redeem the world from death 
unto life, to make its griefs His Own, to toil 
under the burdens of men, to guide with 
brotherly counsels men's stumbling feet into 

1 St. Matt. viii. 20. 2 St. Jno. i. 10. 

8 St. Jno. i. 11. 



272 



THE FAITHFUL COMPANION. 



the way of peace, He found Himself not 
wanted and not tolerated — " despised and 
rejected of men." 1 Coming to Israel as its 
Prince and Saviour, the Incarnate Fulfilment 
of all that the prophets had spoken from the 
beginning, He is met with the cry of invete- 
rate enmity, " We will not have this man to 
reign over us." 2 With this the attitude of Is- 
rael and of the world, His pathway, as far as it 
touches Israel and the world, must be a lonely 
pathway. 

But the loneliness of His personal experi- 
ence is intensified by the desertion of His 
friends. " Ye shall be scattered and shall leave 
Me alone." He predicted this before it occurred, 
and the knowledge of its approach made Him 
conscious always that at the last His friends 
would fail Him and fall away. Thus, whatever 
may have been His natural craving for their 
support, in His Heart He knew that He was 
their Supporter and they not His. But above 
all else, Christ's wondrous, unique nature, with 
its perfect antipathy to all sin, yet living in a 
sinful environment ; with its supreme insight 
into the thought-life of others, yet detecting 
there mainly ignorance and unbelief ; with its 
infinite capacity for suffering met by an infinite 

1 Isa. liii. 3. 2 St. Lk. xix. 14. 



THE FAITHFUL COMPANION. 273 



need that He should suffer, — this, His unique 
nature, placed Him in an experience where, 
however intensely human love might wish to 
bear Him company, human incapacity prevented 
companionship. His sorrow no human friend 
could share. Being Who and What He was, 
He had no choice but to tread the winepress 
alone. Thus we think our way, my friends, in 
some true though imperfect degree, into the 
loneliness of our Lord's Personal Experience, 
and just as we begin in a sense to grasp it, and 
just as we begin to say, " Was ever sorrow like 
unto His sorrow?" suddenly He breaks in 
upon our thought with that marvellous word of 
contrast, "and yet, — and yet," with all the 
loneliness that you can understand, and with 
all the loneliness beyond that loneliness which 
you cannot possibly understand, " and yet I am 
not alone, for the Father is with Me." 

If this is Christ's testimony, given in the 
days when He was walking here in the same 
world where we are now walking, may not His 
disciples give in their own way a testimony 
like His ? If He, amidst the toils and sorrows 
of His laborious ministry, was continually re- 
vived by the Companionship of the Eternal 
Father, are not we, who by faith have known 
that Blessed Saviour, permitted to enjoy His 



274 



THE FAITHFUL COMPANION. 



Companionship amidst the trying solitariness of 
our personal experience, and to say in life's 
loneliest hour, " And yet I am not alone " ? 

The experience of loneliness is one of the 
most complex of our experiences ; it is found 
in many a life where its presence is least sus- 
pected ; it is often produced to an extreme de- 
gree in those who have little time to be alone ; 
and although we cannot believe that our lone- 
liness ever approximates to that felt by our 
Lord, it is nevertheless one of the deepest 
notes that are ever sounded in our hearts. 
Having just spoken of the loneliness of Christ's 
Personal Experience and of the blessed relief 
which He had in it all, through realizing the 
Companionship of the Father, I propose fur- 
ther to speak of the conditions frequently en- 
countered in one and another human life where 
the loneliness of personal experience may be 
most keenly felt, and where, to those who 
possess a true faith, the Presence of Christ, 
the Faithful Companion, will be particularly 
strengthening. 

" And yet I am not alone ! " Happy is he 
who can speak thus concerning the Presence of 
Christ amidst the loneliness of inexperience. 
What is more lonely than thoughtful youth? 
Some natures in the days of their youth make 



THE FAITHFUL COMPANION. 275 



a jest of living ; they view every question 
from the standpoint of a joke ; they make the 
sweetest and the greatest matters trivial by their 
method of handling them. To such, inexperi- 
ence has no loneliness in youth ; perchance it 
shall beget a very bitter loneliness ere many 
years have passed. But to the thoughtful, 
walking out from their childhood into the wide, 
wide world of living and deciding and doing ; 
beset at every point with new questions, loaded 
with new responsibilities, thrilled with new feel- 
ings, sensitively conscious that the heart is un- 
skilled, the judgment undeveloped, — to such 
the loneliness of inexperience is a great reality. 
We are accustomed to talk in broad abstrac- 
tions about the sunny freedom of youth ; and 
it is, in many things, a sunny freedom. Yet I 
question whether any tears we ever shed in 
riper years are more scalding than some which 
youth has shed ; I question whether the fear of 
living has ever come with more sickening insis- 
tence to any than to some yet trembling on 
the threshold of life ; I question whether any 
loneliness has created a sense of more utter 
desolation than in some tender hearts forced by 
circumstances to stand alone in youth. Happy 
are they, yes and safe are they, who amidst 
that prostrating loneliness of inexperience are 



276 



THE FAITHFUL COMPANION. 



able to say, realizing the Presence of Christ, 
" and yet — and yet, I am not alone." To be 
able to say that is to acknowledge that we have 
found a Friend, a Faithful Companion, Who 
will not despise our inexperience, Who will not 
deride our mistakes, Who will not frown on 
our youthful desires. It is impossible for me 
to express the tenderness with which my heart 
goes forth to inexperienced and thoughtful 
youth ; how great its affairs seem to me ; how 
sacred its aspirations ; how pathetic its sadness 
and its fears. But could I condense all my 
sympathies with youth into one single expres- 
sion, it would be to tell the young heart, in its 
mysterious loneliness, that there is One Friend 
and One alone Who can take that loneliness 
away. 

" And yet I am not alone." Happy is he 
who can speak thus concerning the Presence 
of Christ amidst the loneliness of temptation. 
There are some of our temptations which con- 
template, in their consummation, an open act ; 
there are others which look to consummation 
in secret deed. Of both forms it may be said 
with equal truth that loneliness is the final 
characteristic of temptation. For in the last 
analysis of temptation, we find the place of 
decision was in the loneliness of the heart. 



THE FAITHFUL COMPANION. 



277 



There, where the evil desires are caged like 
unclean birds, where the imagination exhibits 
its false ideals of the satisfaction of sinning ; 
there, where thoughts utter themselves una- 
bashed whose faintest whisper we would sup- 
press from the hearing of human ears, — thither 
within himself the man withdraws, willing to 
indulge himself with unholy solitude ; closing 
in the blinds about the windows of his life ; 
shutting and locking the doors behind him ; 
consenting to ponder evil. God send to such a 
man in such a moment the startling thought, 
" And yet I am not alone ! " God make such 
a man suddenly conscious of a Presence with 
him in what he thought his solitude ; God 
cause such a man to start up and see at his 
right hand the Holy Saviour, gazing with Eyes 
where sternness and love contend, and say- 
ing, " Arise ! Thou art not alone. I forbid 
thee to bring this shame upon thy soul." 

" And yet I am not alone." Happy is he 
who can speak thus concerning the Presence of 
Christ amidst the loneliness of spiritual desire. 
Sooner or later, he who truly leads the life of 
spiritual desire will find it in some things a 
lonely life. If any one who believes Christ, with 
all his heart gives himself up to the longing for 
likeness to Christ, which is holiness ; for one- 



278 



THE FAITHFUL COMPANION. 



ness with Christ, which is power ; for the vision 
of Christ, which is knowledge, — he must expect 
to be often in loneliness as far as human com- 
panionship goes. This loneliness he will some- 
times realize most keenly when all around him 
are the gay and laughing faces of his friends ; 
when human voices are sounding in his ears 
like the sound of many waters ; when people 
are jostling and thronging him in the crowded 
path ; lonelier often in the tumultuous and ex- 
citing city, where men are, than when standing 
afar on the white sands of the deserted coast, or 
climbing, amidst mountain sheep, some voiceless 
and mist-bound mountain top. The life of spir- 
itual desire is not the life of the world ; to pre- 
fer it is to prefer what few count desirable ; to 
live that life is to think as the majority do not 
think. The price of living it is loneliness ; it 
is to know that many think you different, that 
some think you foolish ; it is to realize that 
your sentiments are the sentiments of the minor- 
ity ; and that if you are lonely you cannot ex- 
pect much sympathy from your friends. It is 
a fair question : " Is the life worth the loneli- 
ness?" I do not profess to answer the ques- 
tion ; but some could answer it who, knowing 
to its full extent that form of loneliness, have 
also known all that can come in that loneli- 



THE FAITHFUL COMPANION. 279 



ness to make one cry out with a joy that is like 
no other joy, " And yet I am not alone ! " 

" And yet I am not alone." Happy is he 
who can speak thus concerning" the Presence 
of Christ amidst the loneliness of advancing 
years. I do not speak only of old age. Of its 
peculiar experiences I know nothing save as 
they have been communicated to me by the 
aged. Those communications convince me that 
what I am about to say will be realized as true 
by all who are older, as well as by many who 
are younger, than myself. Advancing years 
are the portion of all of us. Years advance 
for us all. And in their advance they bring 
startling changes, — changes, many of them, 
startling by reason of their suddenness ; and 
many of them no less startling because they 
have come slowly. For from time to time we 
arise astonished, and as it were take inventories 
of the changes in others and in ourselves. We 
reckon them up in altered countenances, in ad- 
ded stature, in whiter hair, in feebler steps ; we 
reckon them up in the changes of residence 
and the history of those changes ; in new homes 
founded, in old homes broken up or break- 
ing. We reckon them up in empty cribs, and 
vacant chairs; in the sudden translation of 
glorious friends ; in mounds, small and great, 



280 



THE FAITHFUL COMPANION. 



where buried treasures lie. We reckon them 
up in life lessons learned, of patience, of obe- 
dience, of renunciation, of silence. And in 
these involuntary inventories of changes, how 
keenly at times we feel the loneliness of ad- 
vancing years ! How many feel it who are not 
old, or nearly old ! How many who now hear 
me have been led, through changes, to appre- 
ciate loneliness on earth ; to realize the neces- 
sity for a blessed, enduring life beyond the 
grave ! How many have thought out in sub- 
stance, if they have not also breathed out in 
words, those matchless stanzas of Montgom- 
ery : — 

" Friend after friend departs; 

Who hath not lost a friend ? 
There is no union here of hearts 

That finds not here an end. 
Were this frail world our only rest, 
Living or dying, none were blest. 

" Beyond the flight of Time, 

Beyond this vale of death, 
There surely is some blessed clime, 

Where life is not a breath, 
Nor life's affections transient fire 
Whose sparks fly upward to expire." 

Against that inevitable loneliness of advancing 
years it is vain to protest. No human hand 
can stay that tide, rising steadily over dear 
landmarks of our life. What strange second- 



THE FAITHFUL COMPANION. 281 



meaning follows like an echo those great words, 
" We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be 
changed " 1 1 Happy they who through the flux 
of years can know, clearly and yet more clearly, 
by His very contrast with our life, the Change- 
less One, the Faithful Companion, Jesus Christ, 
the same yesterday, to-day, and forever ! Then 
may the waves swing far apart the life-boats 
toiling towards the shore, and yet we are not 
alone. 

" And yet I am not alone ! " Happy shall he 
be who can speak thus concerning the Presence 
of Christ amidst the loneliness of death. None 
but the dead know all the loneliness of dying. 
The dormant, stolid nature, that has been con- 
tent to live alone, may not keenly feel it lonely 
to die. But he who has loved love, whose heart 
has answered to it as the wind-harp answers to 
the breeze, — he will find it lonely and strange 
to die. To the verge of that experience Human 
Love will attend us ; her arms will clasp like the 
Everlasting Arms beneath our fainting head ; 
when hearing is gone, her eyes will look speech- 
less messages of courage ; when sight is gone, 
her hand will speak by silent pressure. But 
there is a moment beyond which we must walk 
alone. Alone ? Ah ! need it be alone ? May 

1 1 Cor. xv. 51. 



282 



THE FAITHFUL COMPAXIOX. 



we not trust that He Who was before all 
will likewise come after all, to speak through 
the senses of the soul, deathless in the dying 
body ? May we not trust that whosoever liveth 
and believeth in Him shall uot suffer the lone- 
liness of death ; that the last surprise on earth, 
the first in heaven, is this : " And yet I am not 
alone " ? Amen. 



XVII. 

FORBEARANCE. 



XVII. 



FOKBEAKANCE. 

" Suffer it to be so now." — St. Matthew iii. 15. 

I wish to speak about Forbearance, as one 
of those elements of goodness and complete- 
ness for which we are certain to find plenty of 
use in the daily round of life, and concerning 
which Christ has given us both His most beauti- 
ful precept and His most Holy Example. The 
words of our text, when understood, — that is, 
when seen in the light of what they must have 
meant to Christ Who spoke them, — are sim- 
ply perfect as the law and language of for- 
bearance ; we might search all literature, but 
in vain, to find anything so tender, so gentle, 
so strong, so patient, so grandly expectant, as 
this word : " Suffer it to be so now." If we 
saw no more in it than the fact that it is the 
first official utterance of Christ, it would be 
enough to rivet our attention. Till now, from 
His birth, Jesus has been preparing for His 
official ministry. Thirty years have passed in 
seclusion, in growing up to the point where, as 



286 



FORBEARANCE. 



a Man, He shall take up His public work. And 
when he begins, behold the quietness of the 
Beginning ! No proclamation of Himself, of 
His intentions, His claims. No brilliant burst 
of oratory, announcing that a new star had 
arisen, a new prophet dawned upon the scene. 
Instead of this, which had it come would not 
have been unfitting, the first official word of 
Jesus is the quiet, gentle, melodious doctrine 
of forbearance : " Suffer it to be so now." 

But let us look into the profounder meaning 
of the sentence. The circumstance calling it 
forth we know very well. We remember how 
the mystic forerunner, the brilliant cousin of 
our Lord, St. John the Baptist, was fulfilling 
his severe mission. Young, vigorous, perfect- 
ly disciplined, absolutely fearless, with a grand 
and thrilling voice, with flashing eyes, with 
hand outstretched and tense as if grasping the* 
very sword of judgment, the Baptizer, the 
Prophet of Kepentance, proclaimed the king- 
dom of God. Unterrified by menace, undis- 
mayed by scorn, he summoned all men to 
repentance, flinging in the face of Scribes and 
Pharisees epithets that stung like the viper's 
fang-s, creating a reign of terror in the hardened 
hearts of soldiers and publicans. By what 
stroke of mysterious power is this invincible 



FORBEARANCE. 



287 



man suddenly broken down ? The fire is 
quenched from his eyes, the tense muscles re- 
lax, the ringing voice is broken as with tears, 
and he, who one moment since was urging and 
commanding every one to come and be im- 
mersed, is now making feeble gestures of pro- 
hibition, as if he would keep from entering the 
water a Man, young as himself, Who has just 
approached. Before that Man he breaks as 
under a stroke from heaven, — pain, protest, 
impatience, struggle in his face, — and in 
broken words he says : " I have need to be 
baptized of Thee, and comest Thou to me ! " 
Intuition had revealed to him the Personality 
that now for the first time he beheld, and be- 
fore the Incarnation of Holiness, Truth, Wis- 
dom, and Power, for which the ages had waited, 
lie felt his own ministry shrivelled up into 
nothing ; and the thought of subjecting the 
sinless Christ to a baptism administered by his 
sinful hands — a baptism that had no meaning 
save the washing away of sins — w T as to him 
intolerable, a false position, an insufferable 
humiliation of his own spirit. Can we not 
understand this, who have ever had come to 
us for help lives that we felt to be infinitely 
purer, nobler, nearer to God than our own, — 
souls that could do, nay that were doing, for us 



288 



FORBEARANCE. 



more than we could ever do for them ? Has 
not our involuntary sense of truth revealed to 
us their power, so far beyond our own, and 
extorted the silent cry: "I have need to be 
baptized of thee, and comest thou to me!" 
Their eyes meet, the two marvellous children 
of prophecy, nurtured apart, and now brought 
together at the Jordan - side of discipline. 
They know each other now with a perfect 
comprehension, and Christ's intensely earnest 
and quiet word to him is : " Suffer it to be so 
now, for thus it becometh us to fulfil all right- 
eousness." It was enough. " Then he suffered 
Him." Protest knelt in obedience, and the dis- 
ciplined life did for Another what it craved 
might have come to itself. 

But in the words of Jesus, " Suffer it to be 
so now," far deeper meaning is there than that 
which applies to John. Think of the humilia- 
tion of the baptism of repentance for the sin- 
less Saviour; think of the yoke to which, so 
quietly and gently, He was then bowing His 
neck ; think of the forbearance of that Heart 
which could go so meekly in among sinners, 
and take part in the ordinance which im- 
plied and signified sin ! How revolting to us 
is the insinuation of a sin of which we are 
truly innocent ! How infinitely more painful 



FORBEARANCE. 



289 



to the absolutely perfect Soul of Christ must 
have been the freezing shock of that baptism 
for sin ! Yes, He was speaking to Himself in 
that hour as well as to His friend when He 
said : " Suffer it to be so now." For these 
dear and gentle words were the law of His 
Life from the Childhood to the sepulchre ; al- 
ways suffering it to be as it was then and 
there ; because in that forbearance, that re- 
fraining from the assertion of His Own Divine 
rights, that quietude of spirit and language 
and action, He was fulfilling His mission of 
eternal strength, and was opening a way by 
His Example for the encouragement of all 
who love Him, and who are finding out every 
day in their own daily round how often for- 
bearance is the one thing needful ; how many, 
many things in life, in character, they must 
suffer to be so now, if they ever hope or ex- 
pect to show forth the Spirit of Jesus in a 
manner that shall lead others to reverence 
Him. 

Placing, then, clearly before us the great 
example of Him concerning Whose forbearance 
Isaiah prophesied, " He is brought as a lamb to 
the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shear- 
ers is dumb, so He openeth not His mouth," 1 

1 Isa. liii. 7. 



290 



FORBEARANCE. 



and of whom St. Peter wrote, " When He 
was reviled, He reviled not again ; when He 
suffered, He threatened not," 1 I wish to speak 
of some matters not unworthy to be connected 
with the Example and Spirit of Jesus. And I 
do specially connect them with Him, that those 
just thoughtfully beginning a Christian life, 
and not sure of what matters may properly be 
connected with it, may see how, if any one has 
given himself to the Saviour, trusting in the 
Blood of the Cross for justification, he must 
make Christ the central Object of the daily 
round, and live through all common and un- 
common experiences with Him in view. And 
also, I trust, God by His Spirit may greatly 
bless this thought to all who have been believ- 
ers for a longer time, so that if our religion 
has become a formal and professional and theo- 
retical thing, remote from the actual daily 
round, we may make haste penitently to seek 
a new deliverance in Christ from this bondage 
of formal, unmeaning religious habits, and be- 
gin living our common, hourly life in the 
Presence and for the sake of our Lord. This 
law of " Suffer it to be so now " was not only 
constantly reappearing in the only absolutely 
Perfect Life ever lived among men, it has close 
i 1 Pet. ii. 23. ' 



FORBEARANCE. 



291 



and constant relations with us. And may I 
speak, with great directness, of four opportu- 
nities, given more or less to all of us, to mani- 
fest our reverence for Christ by reverencing 
His blessed law of forbearance? More or 
less, according to age, station, and develop- 
ment of the higher nature, the Lord puts into 
our lives the opportunities of forbearance to- 
ward the inexperienced; forbearance toward 
the un spiritual; forbearance toward the un- 
reasonable ; forbearance at home. 

Forbearance toward the inexperienced. In 
life there is nothing that so makes some people 
strong, self-controlled, rich in thought, as ex- 
perience, attended with God's blessing. It 
has done for them more than ever natural en- 
dowment did for them. It has admitted them, 
often by painfully steep and rough ways, into 
new realms of knowledge ; it has educated 
them in heart and mind ; it has added new 
gifts, apparently, to their lives ; and could 
they, as they stand to-day, clothed in their 
long and rich robes of experience, be per- 
mitted to look back and see themselves as they 
once stood, weak and shivering and unclothed, 
on the threshold of life, they would not know 
themselves, nor believe that ever they were so 
poorly furnished. But it is true that once they 



292 



FORBEARANCE. 



were without experience, crude and unformed 
in thought, rash in opinion, fickle in choice ; 
perpetual transgressors, perhaps the trial and 
torment of dear, patient lives now at rest in 
God. And it is also true that the most enrich- 
ing experiences of their lives have come to 
them gradually, unfolding with years, and de- 
veloping under the long summer growing time 
of favoring opportunity. Also, some of the 
influences which have done the largest things 
for them were of a kind that could not possi- 
bly be understood at first, that in the order of 
nature must remain without significance till 
the fulness of time had come. To those 
crowned with the honorable crown of age, the 
thoughts, opinions, and decisions which early 
manhood thinks mature must seem most in- 
complete and ungrown. But there is far more 
than kindness, there is the Grace of Jesus, in 
knowing how to understand and make allow- 
ance for inexperience ; how and when to say 
of things that from your advanced standpoint 
you would desire changed, " Suffer it to be so 
now." It is most terrible and saddening to 
think of the mistakes of Inexperience, the life- 
long burdens that would never have been taken 
on had there been any sense of consequences ; 
but it is not less terrible to think of the mis- 



FORBEARANCE. 



293 



takes of Experience when she has forgotten the 
Saviour's law of forbearance in dealing- with 
the ungrown and the unformed. Oh, if Ex- 
perience would not so often look down on 
Inexperience with contempt, or with relent- 
less rebuke ! If Experience would not de- 
mand from Inexperience an impossible maturity 
of conviction and preference ! If Experience 
would devote more time and gentle thought to 
being the friend and companion of Inexperi- 
ence, entering into its life, putting itself in 
its place, discerning between the permanent and 
the transitional in character, between the qual- 
ities that constitute the substance of life and 
the temporary manifestations of incompleteness, 
concerning which our Lord's great law of pa- 
tience and love is, " Suffer it to be so now " ! 
Dear little friend ! Shall I rebuke you be- 
cause you cannot understand some things 
which I, at your age, knew not in the least ? 
because you cannot feel an interest in some 
things which to me, at your age, were less 
than nothing? Shall I condemn you because 
you are fighting more bravely than I the very 
temptation of my childhood? Shall I look 
down on you because your opinions on some 
point do not comprehend elements you could 
not possibly know ? God forbid ! Even now, 



294 



FORBEARANCE. 



in many things, you are my teacher ; in many 
ways, my helper. And I, if I would help you, 
must live in your life, and if I would see you 
grow up a Christian I must wait for you ; and 
that which is ungrown in you I must " suffer 
it to be so now." 

Forbearance toward the unspiritual. By 
this term I do not mean to describe those who 
have no sympathy with religious things, no 
portion even of nominal or inherited faith, no 
acquaintance with the Christian effort. My 
thought is of lives that have embraced the 
form of religion without apparently discerning 
its spiritual power, that have received the Holy 
Name, but apparently without coming to any 
such personal knowledge of Jesus as leads one 
to wish and struggle for a separateness of life 
from many incomplete ways in order to be free 
for a more entire consecration of thought, 
time, and labor to the Blessed Master. These 
lives are contented, happy, untroubled in their 
combination of the church life with the world 
life ; having a love for the church, but a love 
certainly as strong for all the most distinctively 
worldly indulgences, and no conception of find- 
ing a higher joy by personally renouncing cer- 
tain self-indulgences as an act of homage to 
Christ, and as a means of setting themselves 



FORBEARANCE. 



295 



more entirely free for His service. Now, on 
the other hand, there are those to whom the 
Grace of God (certainly it is this, and not any 
goodness of their own !) has brought a more 
advanced conviction in spiritual matters, and 
they personally have been led to a clearer view 
of their Lord and His claims, in consequence 
of which they are strengthened to take a posi- 
tion far higher spiritually as to the renuncia- 
tion of self-indulgences of various kinds for 
Christ's sake. To these, blessed of God in 
being permitted to have clear convictions on 
some points where the convictions of others are 
much clouded, there is the strongest need to 
commend the grace of forbearance as mani- 
fested towards those who have not come to the 
same state of mind, and who make no response 
to these subjects of consecration. To these, 
to whom the Lord has given so much light, 
He seems to say : " Be very gentle towards 
those who do not see as you do, nor think 
as you do. The earnestness of consecration 
may by an unconscious change in an unguarded 
moment slip into self-righteousness, and that is 
the death of influence. Remember that you 
yourself have only had this light and these 
views a little while, perhaps. How long you 
felt as others feel, and suffered the old life to 



296 



FORBEARANCE. 



carry you where it would ! Remember that 
special mercy you received and are receiving 
in the influences around you, and that others 
not only are without those influences, but have 
many which are unspeakably adverse. There- 
fore, when they seem to you to be far off from 
the Ideal, and most deficient in the expression 
of higher views, heed My Word : Suffer it to 
be so now, and for yourself go meekly and 
earnestly forward, trying so to live in and 
for Me, that My Spirit may be able to work 
through your life upon others, giving them 
the light given to you. And some of them 
may even now be on the verge of decisions 
from which one condemning word from you 
would drive them back forever." 

Forbearance toward the unreasonable. These 
are the lives which, in impatient moments we 
have said, were sent into our paths only to 
try us. Let us not justify ourselves ; let us 
not pretend that we have always met these 
lives in the spirit and temper of Jesus. Let 
us rather think frankly, even if sadly and in 
self-condemnation, of the many times when 
we have resented unreasonableness in others. 
That it was natural from our standpoint to 
do so, one cannot deny; that it seemed quite 
impossible from that standpoint to avoid it, 



FORBEARANCE. 



297 



one cannot deny. But, alas ! the fault lay 
in our standpoint, which was much too low 
and altogether selfish. Had we been standing 
at the standpoint of the Saviour, we would 
have had a share of His larger knowledge and 
of His larger sympathy. His larger know- 
ledge would have told us that these unreason- 
able lives have had their own fountains of 
bitterness, stricken open it may be by rods 
held in hands not their own ; that they have 
seen often the blighting of dear hopes ; that 
they were not thus once, — not till after some 
day of anguish long ago, of which they speak 
not, when they saw the light of life blown out 
in v a furious storm, or engulfed in a lonely 
grave. From that day they never were the 
same. And while I do not say that any 
trouble gives one a right to be selfish or bitter, 
and while it may be we, too, have some things 
in our lives to endure in silence, I do say that 
the larger sympathy of Jesus makes one for- 
give and forget to the end the bitterness born 
of sickness or sorrow, and to " suffer it to be 
so now." 

Forbearance at home. Is there at home 
some little thing, coming up now and then, 
to wear upon your calmness; some manifes- 
tation from one or another of the family to 



298 



FORBEARANCE. 



provoke the bitter word, the resentful act? 
Child ! parent ! " Suffer it to be so now." 
" Now ! " As I say that word it sounds to me 
like a bell tolling from a tower the prophecy 
of change. " Suffer it to be so now ; " put up 
with many things for love's sake. It will not 
be always. It may not be long. There are 
empty sheepf olds on the moors ; the sheep are 
scattered. There are empty homes soon 
enough, for the children must scatter, and the 
parents must say " Good-by." While we may 
— oh, while we may ! let us keep together. 

" The hands are such dear hands ; 
They are so full ; they turn at our demands 
So often; they reach out 
With trifles scarcely thought about ; 
So many times they do 
So many things for me, for you, 
If their fond wills mistake, 
We may well bend, not break. 

" They are such fond, frail hps 
That speak to us. Pray, if love strips 
Them of discretion many times, 
Or if they speak too slow or quick, such crimes 
We may pass by ; for we may see 
Days not far off when those small words may be 
Held not as slow or quick, or out of place, but dear, 
Because the lips are no more here. 

" They are such dear, familiar feet that go 
Along the path with ours, — feet fast or slow 
And trying to keep pace, — if they mistake, 
Or tread upon some flower that we would take 



FORBEARANCE. 



299 



Upon our breast, or bruise some reed 

Or crush poor Hope until it bleed, 

We may be mute, 

Not turning quickly to impute 

Grave fault ; for they and we 

Have such a little way to go, — can be 

Together such a little while along the way, — 

We will be patient while we may. 

" So many little faults we find ! 
We see them, for not blind 
Is Love. We see them, but if you and I 
Perhaps remember them, some by and by 
They will not be 

Faults then — grave faults — to you and me, 

But just odd ways — mistakes, or even less — 

Remembrances to bless. 

Days change so many things, — yes, hours ; 

We see so differently in suns and showers. 

Mistaken words to-night 

May be so cherished by to-morrow's light 

We may be patient ; for we know 

There 's such a little way to go." 



XVIII. 

THE RECOGNITION OF DEPARTED 
GREATNESS. 



XVIII. 



THE RECOGNITION OF DEPARTED 
GREATNESS. 

Preached on the Birthday of Washington, Feb. 22, 1891. 

" And it came to pass, as they still went on and talked, that, 
behold, there appeared a chariot of fire and horses of fire and 
parted them both asunder ; and Elijah went up by a whirl- 
wind into heaven. And Elisha saw it, and he cried, My father, 
my father, the chariot of Israel and the horsemen thereof." — 
2 Kings ii. 11, 12. 

On this historic day I need not tell you that 
my theme is The Recognition of Departed 
Greatness. We have heard from the Old Testa- 
ment the magnificent account of the apotheosis 
of Elijah. 1 To that account I attempt not to 
add one word. By his compelling eloquence 
the unknown narrator has drawn us all into 
that last journey of the prophet and the pupil, 
and we have seen the great man rise to take his 
seat on high among the godlike victors. Yet 
I may attempt to say what feature in that 
scene most deeply moves me to-day. It is not 
the sweet dignity of Elijah as he comes to the 

i 2 Kings ii. 1-15. 



304 DEPARTED GREATNESS. 



hour of his reward. It is not the extraordinary 
manner of his translation, amidst the flashing 
vision of that cloud-like car of light. With 
stronger attraction than to these, my mind is 
drawn to him who is left behind, bereft of his 
hero-master, and stricken with the solemn sense 
of life's great vocation and his own unfitness to 
meet it. Yes, it is to the spirit and to the man- 
ner of the young Elisha's recognition of departed 
greatness my mind is drawn to-day with strong 
enthusiasm and, I trust, with thoughts appropri- 
ate to this anniversary, — a day which no true 
American should carelessly pass by. 

In three most admirable ways Elisha, as a 
young and thoughtful man, shows his recogni- 
tion of his departed master's greatness. First, 
in terms of lofty strength, which honor his own 
intelligence even as they honor the memory of 
his master, he worthily describes Elijah's influ- 
ence upon the safety and the destiny of Israel. 
When the car of light had borne away his 
hero, the first passionate impulse of that ex- 
alted moment was to acknowledge the true 
greatness of his vanished friend : " My father, 
my father, the chariot of Israel and the horse- 
men thereof." The imagery of his words is 
the instantaneous reflection of the brilliant 
vision. As in a dream he had seen the hero 



DEPARTED GREATNESS. 305 



lifted to the flaming chariot of triumph ; even 
like that impetuous vehicle of light looks, to his 
mind's eye, the career of his master, sketched 
at one stroke upon his quickened memory : 
" My father, my father, the chariot that now 
bears thee to God is like thine own bright life. 
So on the breast of thine heroic courage, thine 
indomitable patriotism, thy burning faith, thou 
didst bear thy nation onward and upward. My 
father, my father, the chariot of Israel thou/' 

Second, Elisha recognizes the greatness of his 
departed master in the revulsion of feeling to- 
ward fear and self -distrust. " He took hold of 
his own clothes and rent them in two pieces." 
There are crucial moments, especially in youth, 
when fear is nobler than courage, and self-distrust 
is manlier than confidence. Of such moments 
this was one. In the first passionate moment 
following the translation, thought, like a tre- 
mendous wave, had rushed far up the shore of 
memory. There it broke, and returning upon 
himself dragged him, as by an undertow, into 
the depths of fear. Buried in an agony of self- 
distrust, he is conscious now only of the dis- 
crepancy between the vanished one and him- 
self, — Elijah's life so splendidly developed, his 
own so immature ; Elijah's grasp upon the 
forces of his time so tenacious and so master- 



306 



DEPARTED GREATNESS. 



f ul, his own so uncertain and so weak. Afraid 
of his own youth, he seizes the mantle from his 
shoulders and tears it in pieces. 

Third, Elisha recognizes the greatness of his 
departed master in the disposition to identify 
himself with the sources of his master's power. 
Ere yet their companionship had terminated, he 
had shown this disposition by that reverence 
which is ever one of the most beautiful char- 
acteristics youth can exhibit. " Let thy spirit 
come upon me, according to the portion of a 
first-born son." So had he prayed. When now 
he stands on the empty field, no longer the ser- 
vant of another, but called to work out his own 
vocation, he is true to his prayer. He has cast 
upon the ground the fragments of his own 
mantle in manful self -distrust. Now from the 
ground he lifts the heaven-fallen mantle of 
his hero, and with it appropriates the motive, 
the faith, the godly strength of his hero's life ; 
linking himself henceforth, in grand humility, 
to the best that had gone before him. And 
thus, as he turns away from his master's apo- 
theosis, to shoulder the burdens and fight the 
battles of his own time and place, Elisha sug- 
gests to every thoughtful youth what is the 
true recognition of departed greatness, every- 
where and always. It is not the mere formal 



DEPARTED GREATNESS. 



307 



service of commemoration ; it is not the mere 
honoring of traditional immortality. It is the 
broad intelligence which can do more than mag- 
nify the present ; even which can measure the 
gloriousness of characters that fought the noble 
fight and won the amaranthine crown in days, 
it may be, far in advance of our own. It is 
that wholesome and modest self -distrust, that 
anxious self-examination, which in the presence 
of the great departed, hushes each whisper of 
boastfulness, and penetrates the conscience with 
holy fear. It is that reverential inquiry into 
the sources and springs of departed greatness, 
with a view to availing ourselves of those 
sources, and drinking at those springs ; that, 
though the great depart, the essence of their 
greatness may rise again in us. These obser- 
vations are pertinent not only to the sacred and 
ancient narrative of Elijah's departure, but to 
the deathless associations which invest this day 
with honor in the calendar of the republic. 

On this day, one hundred and fifty-nine years 
ago, in a homestead at Bridges Creek, upon the 
wooded banks of the Potomac, a charming and 
winning child was born to Augustine Washing- 
ton and Mary Ball, his beautiful young wife. 
It is almost startling to reflect that that fair in- 
fant, sleeping and smiling out the summers of 



308 DEPARTED GREATNESS. 



his infancy beneath the waving trees on the 
Virginian river-bank, and learning the athletic 
sports of his merry boyhood in the sweet mead- 
ows of the Rappahannock, a century and a half 
ago, bears the name which sixty millions of 
people venerate, the name that still flashes fire 
at the touch of sound. " My father, my father, 
the chariot of Israel and the horsemen there- 
of." Even with the same thought of which 
that cry was the expression, we think of him 
to-day, — the Father of the Nation ; the Chariot 
of our Israel ; bearing the cause of Liberty on- 
ward and upward, on the breast of his heroical 
courage, his indomitable patriotism, his burn- 
ing faith. Blest in his birth, blest in his death, 
" his body is buried in peace, and his name 
liveth forevermore." And by what a beautiful 
coincidence of history are we doubly reminded 
this day of departed greatness ! On the eve 
of the Birthday of Washington, one of the 
bravest, truest heroes of the later time has been 
laid in the grave. 1 Henceforward the Burial of 
Sherman and the Birth of Washington, locked 
in the coincidence of history, will draw appro- 
priately near to one another two names repre- 
senting in common forceful character, devotion 

1 General William Tecuniseh Sherman, U. S. A., was buried 
on February 21, 1891. 



DEPARTED GREATNESS. 309 



to duty; valor, magnanimity. And as these 
two heroes (now, we earnestly hope, made 
known to one another in a better world ), — as 
these two heroes lead our thoughts to contem- 
plate departed greatness, how quickly do our 
memories add the names of others who within 
the last few years have gone over to the Invisi- 
ble ! Whichever way we look, we are made 
conscious that gifted and broad-minded and 
valorous and earnest spirits are leaving us, con- 
tinually leaving us; summoned, we believe, to 
pursue higher callings in loftier spheres. In 
every calling great lights are being extin- 
guished and great vacancies are being created. 
From the bench and the bar, from positions of 
state, from the army, from the navy, from the 
realms of finance and of philanthropy, from the 
world of authorship, from the ministry of Christ, 
from the schools of fine arts and of medicine, 
the leaders of a generation are retiring, having 
done all save to tell us who shall take their 
places. And what shall we do ? Shall we only 
stand mute with the sense of loss as the lights 
go out, or crying passionately after each de- 
parting hero, "My father, my father, -the 
chariot of Israel and the horsemen thereof"? 
Nay, let the example of Elisha teach us. The 
question of the hour is on the character and 



310 DEPARTED GREATNESS. 



the aspiration of the younger men. What may 
we hope for from them ? What are their own 
hopes and what their aspirations ? 

As I ask this question, " What are the young 
men doing? Are they in training for these 
places ? Will they fill them in their time ? " I 
hear two answers coming back from opposite 
quarters, and neither one of these answers 
seems the truest or the wisest. On the one 
hand I hear the answer of depression, uttering 
that saddest of all words, " Degeneration ; " 
saying, " The sons are falling below the stat- 
ure of their fathers in physique, in intellectual 
fibre, in moral vigor. They are more afraid of 
hardship and more in love with ease ; more nar- 
row, more selfish, more self-indulgent, more 
frivolous, more materialistic. We cannot look 
for another Washington, nor for another Sher- 
man, for not only they but the making of them 
has passed away. Henceforward we must look 
for a civilization more splendid than the world 
has ever seen, but inhabited by diminished men, 
by men growing to believe that there are things 
which j ustif y a man in selling his soul, and that 
a man's life may consist in the abundance of 
the things that he possesseth." 

On the other hand I hear the answer of over- 
confidence ; the pride which issues from blended 



DEPARTED GREATNESS. 



311 



inexperience and materialism ; and the answer 
of this over-confidence implies, if it does not 
say, that young men are destined surely to out- 
strip their fathers in attaining the grand prize 
of life. The answer of this over-confidence 
entrenches itself within the fortifications of one 
single and supreme argument, and from that 
entrenchment no controversy can dislodge it. 
That argument is the splendor and the com- 
pleteness of modern civilization. One ventures 
to breathe a doubt as to whether the places 
of the great departed are being filled or only 
tenanted bv their successors j whether examples 
of grand and consummate self-sacrifice and of 
the worship of duty are as frequent as of old, 
and the answer is given back, " Yes, but see 
our civilization ; contrast it with the ways in 
which our fathers lived ; see how swiftly we 
do things ; see how magnificently we do things ; 
see these great buildings ; see our wealth." 

Not with either of these answers am I in 
sympathy ; not surely with the answer of de- 
pression, which sees only in the manhood of 
our younger men degeneration from the paren- 
tal type ; and not, as surely, with the answer of 
over-confidence, which often is far more de- 
pressing than the other by reason of its too evi- 
dent exaltation over purely material abundance, 



312 DEPARTED GREATNESS. 



and its unconscious inability even to conceive 
the type, the esjwit, of true, unselfish, uncom- 
mercial greatness. 

Between these two extremes of depression 
and of over-confidence lies the true position for 
the younger men to take as the fathers are 
leaving us and ascending to their reward; and 
I would to God my words might be blessed 
to-day, as a revealing of the truth and the wor- 
thiness of this position to even one whose views 
of life are yet open to influence, and as an 
encouragement to those who have already taken 
this position as their own. To believe only in 
degeneration would be pessimism ; to believe 
only that we are greater than our fathers be- 
cause in some points we live more comfortably, 
and in many points we work more rapidly, 
would be to indulge a most shallow fancy. 
From each of these positions we are drawn to a 
better and a wiser mind by the glorious associ- 
ations of this day. As we younger men think 
to-day of the great departed, of those two with 
whom this day is especially connected (with one 
as his first day of earthly life, with the other 
as his first day of rest in the grave) ; as we 
think of all the others who have gone, leaving 
vast vacancies for us to fill, vast ministries for 
us to perpetuate ; as we cry after them, " Our 



DEPARTED GREATNESS. 313 



fathers, our fathers, the chariots of Israel and 
the horsemen thereof ; " and as we ask our- 
selves, " Are we training for their places ? Are 
we worthy of them ? " — let the recognition of 
departed greatness draw us, with Elisha, to the 
true position. The recognition of greatness is 
next in rank to the possession of it. And the 
true position is one of wholesome courage 
mixed with wholesome fear. This is a great 
time in which to live. And every man of 
thought is bound, with wholesome courage, to 
recognize its greatness. There are conditions 
promoting success denied to our fathers. The 
more shame to us if, with a fair, fighting 
chance, we do not succeed. There are grand 
activities, present and accessible, which were not 
dormant, but uncreated and unimagined, when 
Washington finished his lifework, and when 
Sherman was bom. There are grand liberties 
of speech and liberties of action ; there are 
grand vocations which to men of spirit are 
callings in very deed, — callings Divine, which 
angels might envy but cannot share. Ah ! if 
there is degeneration anywhere, it is not in the 
possibilities for the men, but in the men for 
the possibilities. 

But it is also a time of grievous peril, — peril 
beyond language for the men who have not in 



314 



DEPARTED GREATNESS. 



youth caught their inspiration directly and sin- 
cerely from that Greatest of the Ascended He- 
roes, even from Him " Who is the Way and the 
Truth and the Life." 1 I hardly know how they 
can escape degeneration, for the peril of the age 
has three modes of expression, and through one 
or another of these modes it seems certain to 
capture and diminish the man whose eye is not 
set upon the far-beaming Face of Christ. The 
peril of the age is materialism. And its three 
modes of expression are the materialism of 
pleasure, the materialism of business, the ma- 
terialism of unbelief. 

The materialism of pleasure ! He who is 
captured by it is degenerated toward the stat- 
ure of a pigmy manhood, soft, effeminate, fee- 
bly self-indulgent ; his thoughts revolve in 
orbits more and more circumscribed ; he loses 
steadily the glorious force centrifugal which 
pours outward from himself towards others ; 
he becomes centripetal ; energy works inward, 
growing self -absorbent, — a diminishing man ! 

The materialism of business ! He who is 
captured by it grows in inverse ratio to his suc- 
cess. Business must increase, but he must de- 
crease ; each year more selfish, more pitiless, 
more proportionately illiberal. Life means for 

1 St. Jno. xiv. 6. 



DEPARTED GREATNESS. 



315 



him more and more its equivalent in dollars ; 
and the symmetry of manhood perishes through 
the abnormal growth of the commercial instinct. 

The materialism of unbelief ! He who is 
captured by it falls into the consummate, secret 
snare of modern degeneration. Nothing robs 
life of potential heroism more certainly than 
the surrender of faith in the spiritual and the 
unseen. Nothing diminishes the size of charac- 
ter like the renunciation of faith's eternal and 
infinite aspirations. The materialism of unbe- 
lief not only puts out the lamps and the altar 
fire within the sanctuary, it builds up with dead 
masonry eastward and westward the windows 
through which we have looked out upon the 
Face of God. "My father, my father, the 
chariot of Israel and the horsemen thereof : 
of such as thee are the true heroes made, — 
who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought 
righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the 
mouths of lions ; out of weakness were made 
strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight 
the armies of the aliens.'' Amen. 



XIX. 

THE GLORY OF YOUNG MEN. 



xix: 



THE GLORY OF YOUNG MEN. 

Preached at Williams College, March 8, 1891. 

" The glory of young men is their strength." — Proverbs 
xx. 29. 

Everything which God has made possesses, 
when in its normal state, a glory or a beauty 
of its own, and peculiar to itself. " There is 
one glory of the sun, and another glory of the 
moon, and another glory of the stars." 1 The 
glory of the sea is its depth, its immensity, 
and its power. The glory of the flower is its 
coloring and its fragrance. The glory of the 
opal is the mysterious water in its heart, gleam- 
ing like the reflection of fire. The glory of 
little children is their profound guilelessness 
and their sacred helplessness. The glory of 
the aged is their chastened sweetness, their 
subduing calmness, their " gray-haired might." 
" The glory of young men is their strength." 

Strength is a relative term in respect of de- 

1 1 Cor. xv. 41. 



320 THE GLORY OF YOUNG MEN. 



gree. The buffalo as he plunges over the 
prairie is strong ; the lark as he rises for his 
matin hymn is strong ; the forester as he 
swings the ponderous axe is strong ; the bar- 
nacle as it clings to the ship's bottom is strong. 
Strength is a variable term in respect of ap- 
plied meaning. The advocate makes a strong 
argument for his client. The physician ad- 
ministers a strong tonic to his patient. The 
composer creates a strong melody. The lock- 
smith forges a strong bolt. The artist sketches 
a strong profile. 

In dealing with a word so relative and so 
variable as the word " strength/' what shall 
determine the sense in which it is used when 
presented to us as the peculiar ornament 
and beauty of young men ? The nature of 
the thing to which the term is applied must 
fix the sense in which the term is used. We 
do not confuse the strength of the buffalo with 
the strength of the lark, because we carry dis- 
tinct impressions concerning the natures of 
these two creatures. " The glory of young 
men is their strength." If we take young 
manhood as a work of God, and consider it in 
its normal state, of what nature do we find it 
to be, — a simple nature or a complex nature ? 
The block of quartz has a simple nature ; we 



THE GLORY OF YOUNG MEN'. 321 



may hammer it, crush it, weigh it, and we do 
not find it in the last analysis to possess any 
other nature than the nature of matter. The 
tropical orchid has a simple nature. We may 
dissect it, magnify it, or propagate it, but it 
never discloses to us any other nature than the 
nature of matter. But when we take a good 
normal specimen of young manhood and ex- 
amine it, we find instantly in our specimen the 
signs of a complex nature. 

We find, first of all, a physical nature : a 
nature of matter ; a bodily personality, which, 
in the normal specimen, corresponds to one of 
the many meanings of strength, and which, 
in so far as it in any measure approximates 
completeness, is approximately strong. It is 
a splendid organism, fearfully and wonder- 
fully made, capable of uses that touch almost 
every point in the entire arc of possibil- 
ity, from the most sacred to the most pro- 
fane. We find, in the second place, a nature 
of feeling and impulse and reason, a mental 
and emotional personality, which in the normal 
specimen corresponds to another of the many 
meanings of strength. In this nature (i. e. in 
the mental and emotional man) lie the will, the 
natural affections, the reasoning powers ; and, as 
we can immediately see, — although this is not 



322 THE GLORY OF YOUNG MEN. 



the body, although we can think of the mental 
man apart from the physical man, — these two 
natures are in fact intricately connected. 

We find, in the third place, a nature of 
spirit : a spiritual nature, which, in the nor- 
mal specimen, is capable of receiving impres- 
sions from God, and of communicating with 
Him through an answering life ; a nature 
which God can work upon by His Spirit, find- 
ing in it capacities to which He can reveal 
truths that no being who had not this nature 
could possibly understand. In the physical 
nature there are elements which, to some ex- 
tent, other animals hold in common with man. 
In the mental and emotional nature there are 
apparently elements of feeling and even of in- 
tention which, in some rudimentary sense that 
we may not be able to define, certain animals, 
like dogs and horses, seem to possess in com- 
mon with man. But in his spiritual nature 
man has a nature all his own. This is his 
nvev(ia — his spirit, — which answers to the 
Spirit of God, and which constitutes him, 
whether or not he has become in character at 
all like Gocl, a creature who is made in the 
Image of God. 

As a result of our investigations we find, 
therefore, that this normal specimen of young 



THE GLORY OF YOUNG MEN. 



323 



manhood which we are for the present examin- 
ing has not a simple nature, like the block of 
quartz or like the tropical orchid. He has a 
complex nature, which is like himself, and like 
himself alone, in this, that it is a threefold 
nature, or a triad of natures, — three natures in 
one person. He is the body-man, with full 
bodily powers. He is the mind-man, with will 
and feeling and thought-life. He is the spirit- 
man, with the potential gift of understanding 
the communications of God, and of communi- 
cating with God in his turn. This being what 
he is, this being the nature of young manhood, 
if " the glory of young men is their strength " 
that strength must be of an order corresponding 
to the nature of that creature of whom it is 
the characteristic and the peculiar glory. The 
glory of young men in their normal state, as 
God means them to be, must therefore be a 
strength that corresponds in its expansiveness 
to the complex nature of which it becomes, in 
the order of God's choice, the most beauteous 
ornament. It must be a strength expressing 
itself, so far as possible, in the completeness of 
physical life, so far as possible in the com- 
pleteness of mental and emotional life, so far 
as possible in the completeness of spiritual life. 
Now, if we have thus far reasoned correctly, we 



324 THE GLORY OF YOUNG MEN. 



have brought the subject just where we want it 
to be, broadly into that foreground where we 
can look upon young manhood in the fulness 
of its great threefold life. 

And here we may with safety leave the sub- 
ject for a brief moment, whilst we turn to define 
strength ; and then we will proceed to apply 
the denned word to the threefold manhood of 
young men as their peculiar glory. 

Any lover of the meanings of words will 
understand the fascination of tracking a great 
word back to its birthplace. It awakens some- 
what of the same feelings which we have had 
on visiting the birthplace of a great man. At 
least twenty-five different Hebrew words are, 
in the Old Testament, translated into the single 
English equivalent, " strength." As you may 
suppose, every possible shade of meaning is 
thus presented. The word which we find in 
our text, descriptive of that peculiar type of 
strength which is the glory of young men, is a 
singularly suggestive and a singularly mag- 
nificent word. In the three languages, the 
Arabic, the Syriac, and the Hebrew, we trace 
back the cognate forms of this word, and the 
parent stem of all we find to be a very ancient 
verb, meaning "to pant," as one pants for breath 
who is exerting every power in some great con- 



THE GLORY OF YOUNG MEN. 325 



test. Instantly a picture is brought before the 
mind, that, in the days in which we live, is 
intelligible to every young man ; a picture as 
of one who has set himself a difficult task 
which will call for every ounce of strength and 
of pluck within reach ; who has brought into 
play his very best energies ; who is honestly 
and gloriously taxed, and whose breath comes 
quick with earnestness as he faces the issue 
before him, determined to dare and to do, even 
to the uttermost. That is the stem of this 
strong word, — the panting for breath which 
comes with all exacting and resolute effort; 
and then, as we trace the word down, we find 
that it always contemplates a victory of some 
sort to be won. It is not the strength of mere 
dogged endurance apart from any special end 
in view. It keeps the end in view, always 
an overcoming, always a victory in sight. It 
is the strength of him who pants to be a con- 
queror. And this, says the writer of the Prov- 
erbs, — this is the glory of young men. As the 
sun has its peculiar glory of light and warmth ; 
as the sea has its peculiar glory of immensity 
and depth ; as childhood has its glory of guile- 
lessness ; as age has its glory of reverend and 
chastened dignity, — so young manhood, in 
its normal state, has for its peculiar beauty 



326 



THE GLORY OF YOUNG MEN. 



and charm that strength which is the panting 
of the earnest and resolute life to win its 
victory. 

If this, then, is the nature of that strength, 
a panting for victory, which is the glory of 
young men, it is our privilege to point out 
how this selfsame principle of strength will, 
in the absolutely normal life, reveal itself in 
each of the three natures which, in a manner 
so unique and so sublime, are incorporated in 
the personality of young manhood. And as 
we proceed we shall see how evidently this 
glorious strength-gift, this panting after vic- 
tory which is the peculiar charm of a rightly 
constituted young manhood, is God's wise pro- 
vision to fit young manhood to cope with the 
difficulties it must encounter ; to live above 
the temptations by which it must be assailed ; 
to win the prizes which shall enrich all the 
after-life. God has given, as youth's peculiar 
vantage, this panting after victory, because, in 
this world of adversities, such are the stum- 
bling-blocks, physical, mental, spiritual, in the 
path of success, such are the odds against suc- 
cess, it is necessary to pant for victory before 
you can gain it. 

This panting for victory reveals itself in the 
threefold constitution of young manhood. In 



THE GLORY OF YOUNG MEN 



327 



the physical nature it reveals itself in the love 
of exercises and contests that test nerve and 
muscle, and in the reverent preservation of 
health. It is a great pity that any excesses 
or other perversions of athletic sports should 
have drawn down upon them unfavorable criti- 
cisms from any quarter, for in their essence, 
in their relation to the glory of young men, 
and in their connection with a complete philo- 
sophy of young manhood, athletic sports and 
exercises are truly noble and truly necessary. 
Effeminate and deficient would be the people 
that had no outdoor games, and the race of 
young men who took no interest, direct or in- 
direct, in physical contests and exercises. If 
we spoke only of the effect of these contests 
in creating: a sentiment which encourages the 
more careful preservation of health, we should 
be amply justifying their continuance : for 
when one thinks of the perils which must be 
met even by the young man who has no self- 
destroying habits ; when we remember how 
many in their early years, and in exacting and 
unfavorable occupations, must fight hereditary 
taint, fever-germs, bad food, overwork, accidents, 
and God only knows what more beside, — it is 
good to have a sentiment in the air that even 
physical strength is the glory of young men. 



328 THE GLORY OF YOUNG MEN. 



But I see much more than this in that panting 
for victory which, in the young man of normal 
condition, leads him in some form or other, 
direct or indirect, to take interest in things 
that test nerve and try muscle, and that main- 
tain health. This enthusiasm for physical 
contests and exercises is God's law working it- 
self out in one branch of the young man's 
nature ; and even if sickness or deformity have 
shut him out from these fine contests and 
these exhilarating exercises, he can show that 
he is true in spirit to that law by loving and 
applauding the victories of others. 

In the mental and emotional nature this 
strength which is the panting for victory re- 
veals itself in the intellectual and financial 
ambitions and in the pure affections of ardent 
youth. The glory of young men is the 
strength of their ambitions and the strength 
of their affections. It is normal to aspire. It 
is normal to love. The resolute worker and 
the resolute lover are alike fulfilling ends for 
which they were created. These mighty and 
holy efforts wrought through the ambitions 
and through the affections are, in so far as 
they accord with truth and with virtue, the 
operations of a law which sets at last upon the 
head of young manhood the crown of honor 



THE GLORY OF YOUNG MEN. 329 



and dignity. This panting after victory in the 
realm of his life which contains the will, the 
affections, the reasoning powers ; this earnest- 
ness which becomes at length written upon the 
very countenance, and which stands self-be- 
trayed in the very tones of the voice, — has a 
meaning which reaches down into the founda- 
tions of character, and which clothes young 
manhood with a beautiful worthiness and 
power. It is the happy indication that he has 
taken the first step toward winning the victory, 
in his realizing so profoundly that there is a 
victory to be won. 

In the spiritual nature, this strength which 
is the panting for victory reveals itself in the 
panting of the soul for communion with God. 
The symmetry of life is unknown till this trans- 
pires. Can we call it strength of a kind that 
is worthy to be known as the glory of young 
men, until this strength has shown itself in the 
highest realm of the man's nature, even in that 
realm in which he is touched by the Life of 
God, and in which he touches God in return ? 
Can we speak of the man as strong, as panting 
after victory, when he is only an athlete, or 
only an ambitious man, and is not a man who 
is reaching outward and upward for fellowship 
with his Divine Father and his Divine Saviour ? 



330 THE GLORY OF YOUNG MEN. 



No, I cannot call him strong. I may admire 
him as a fearless athlete, ever ready for the 
contest which tries nerve and muscle ; or I may 
admire him as a man of ambition, or as a man 
of talent, or as a man of affection, showing in 
his work and in his love most praiseworthy ear- 
nestness ; but I cannot call him strong when, 
on that side of his nature which is undoubtedly 
the loftiest, — on the side which he presents to 
God, — he appears to be destitute of ambition, 
and to know nought of what it means to pant 
for that victory which overcomes the world. I 
call him strong, with that strength which is the 
glory of young men, who, in addition to all 
physical and mental ambitions, is conscious that 
he pants for a nobler life as the servant of 
God ; is conscious that he has in him an im- 
mortal principle which can express itself, and 
which can fulfil itself, only in communion with 
God ; is conscious that nothing can satisfy his 
deepest life, or bring to him the highest con- 
ception of victory, but the growth of character 
into the likeness of God. I call this man 
strong with that strength which is the essen- 
tial glory of young men, whether as yet he has 
found peace in Christ or not. I call him strong, 
for the strength is manifesting itself in his 
highest selfhood, in the panting for a spiritual 



THE GLORY OF YOUNG MEN. 331 



victory. He may not yet have been able to 
get his hand consciously upon Christ- He 
may to-day be only groping after Christ, or 
he may be holding Christ very blindly and 
uncertainly. Nevertheless he' is panting for 
victory ? and he is awake to the knowledge of 
his own nature as one bearing God's Image ; 
he recognizes the claim of God upon his life ; 
he realizes that " none of us liveth to himself 
and no man dieth to himself." 1 And to-day, 
as a Christian, or as a man desiring to be a 
Christian, he is conscious of a great spiritual 
purpose which has arisen in his life, which is 
suggesting to him spiritual action, which is 
beginning to shine like a pillar of fire, and to 
lead him on toward spiritual victory. 

Thus have we considered that strength 
which is the glory of young men. It is in 
essence the panting for victory ; and, in the 
man who is truly strong, it expresses itself in 
every part of his life, giving unity and sym- 
metry to his manhood. In his physical nature 
it shows in the enthusiasm for a strong physi- 
cal life ; in his intellectual and emotional nature 
it shows in the intensity of his worthy ambi- 
tions and affections ; in his spiritual nature it 
shows in his aspiration to rise above all that is 

1 Rom. xiv. 7. 



332 THE GLORY OF YOUNG MEN. 



unworthy of a child of God, and to attain a 
true communion and fellowship of daily life 
with the Life of God. Thus, in the highest 
and fullest sense, the glory of young men is 
their strength ; that love of victory, that en- 
thusiasm for the thought of overcoming, that 
high-minded earnestness which fits them, in 
proportion as they live a normal life, to cope 
with the difficulties that are the peculiar trial 
and discipline of their time of age. I look 
with unalterable and unspeakable affection 
upon young men. I cannot but feel that my 
companionship with them has in some faint 
degree enabled me to realize their sorrows and 
their joys, their failures and their victories. 
And it is because a most tender feeling goes 
forth alike to those who seem in any part of 
their life to lack their due proportion of that 
strength, that earnestness which is the glory of 
young men, and to those v^ho are with any 
measure of completeness showing it forth, I 
desire also to speak a few words concerning 
the Destroyers and the Makers of Earnestness. 

What are the great Destroyers of Earnest- 
ness? Is not one of them Self-indulgence? 
Does a man realize the extent of the damage 
he is doing to his manhood when he yields 
himself up to a lax and self-indulgent life? 



THE GLORY OF YOUNG MEN. 



333 



No ! surely lie does not realize it, or he would 
never do it. It cannot be that he knows how, 
all the way on through the coming years, he 
must take a lower place than he might have 
taken, and live a weaker life than he might 
have lived, because of this, and this, and this, 
in which he has sluggishly and idly permitted 
habits of self-indulgence to fasten themselves 
like barnacles upon him. 

Is not another Destroyer of Earnestness the 
severing of principle from life-work ? What 
will more completely kill earnestness, and rob 
young manhood of its peculiar, high-minded 
strength, than the inner consciousness of hav- 
ing left moral principle behind on entering 
one's life work ; of having made one's business 
life a mere wage-earning and not a calling, in 
which, whatever it may be, one is striving in 
every sense of the word " to be true to the best 
one knows " ? " No man can serve two masters : 
for either he will hate the one and love the 
other, or else he will hold to the one and de- 
spise the other." 1 Christ has said this to us, 
and who does not know in his own heart that 
it is true ! To do business on any other basis 
than that of the highest principle one knows, 
is to strike a death-blow at the earnestness of 
character. 

1 St. Matt. vi. 24. 



334 THE GLORY OF YOUNG MEN. 



And is not another Destroyer of Earnestness 
the surrender of our ideals? How many a 
man has surrendered his ideals simply because 
others told him they were too high ! And that 
which makes it such a temptation to men to 
surrender their ideals, and so to lose their 
strength, is that they have not yet seen the 
True Ideal clearly ; they lack a clear view 
of Him Who is the Only True Ideal of char- 
acter. Christ is not before their eyes as their 
Master, Saviour, Friend, and Example. If He 
were so before their eyes and in their thoughts, 
they would not find it so easy to surrender the 
ideal ; for following Him in preference to fol- 
lowing the base notions of unspiritual minds 
would be found such a joyous and comforting 
thing amidst the hardships and temptations of 
the world, they would not, at any price, sur- 
render the One Whose power had made life 
worth living. 

And what are some of the Makers of Ear- 
nestness, the Makers of Strength ? One is the 
acceptance of hardship as part of the contract ; 
another is the thought of all those who have 
overcome. 

One is, I say, the acceptance of hardship as 
part of the contract. " Thou, therefore, endure 



THE GLORY OF YOUNG MEN. 335 



hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ." 1 
A man shrinks from breaking off a physical 
habit because it means hardship ; he shrinks 
from noble intellectual training, because it 
means hardship ; he shrinks from coming 
bravely forth and acknowledging himself to 
be a true soldier of Christ, because it means 
hardship. Of course it means hardship ; but 
what then ? Let him accept hardship as part 
of the contract, and he has discovered one of 
the deepest secrets of moral earnestness. He 
has caught Christ's meaning when He said : 
" In the world ye shall have pressure ; but be 
of good cheer, I have overcome the world." 2 

And let him think, oh, let him think ! of all 
those who have overcome. Let him remember 
how many a young man in times past has gone 
up this noble path before him. He is not the 
first ; no, nor will he be the last. He is only 
one brave, true heart; only one clean, strong 
life, of all who have been, of all who shall be, 
of the younger soldiers, serving Christ fear- 
lessly in the glory of their strength. Amen. 

1 2 Tim. ii. 3. 

2 St. Jno, xvi. 33 (Latin version). 



XX. 

THE INTERPRETER 



XX. 

THE INTERPRETER. 

Preached at the Hill School, Pottstown, Pa., 
June 21, 1891. 

" An interpreter : one among a thousand." — Job xxxiii. 23. 

As I stand in your midst once more, dear 
younger brothers of the Hill School, my heart 
fills with hope, with joy, and with desire. I 
pray that it may not be in vain I speak to you 
this day about the highest of all callings. 
What is the highest of all callings ? You see 
a thousand people fighting the battle of life ; 
some are gaining, some are losing, some are 
rising, some are stumbling. You look in their 
faces, and they are the faces of the average. 
You look in their lives, and they are the lives 
of the average, filled up with the usual things. 
But at last you find one face and one life that 
differs from the rest. How ? In that face 
there is more of the shining of the Light of 
God ; in that face there is more of the mark 
of higher thought and larger purpose ; in that 
life there is a power : what power ? the power 



340 



THE INTERPRETER. 



to make others think larger thoughts and live 
larger lives. Among nine hundred and ninety- 
nine faces, and nine hundred and ninety-nine 
lives, that one face, that one life, shines like 
a beautiful light. You forget others, you re- 
member it. What will you call that face, — 
that life ? Call it " an interpreter, one among 
a thousand." To be an interpreter, — to be 
the one, among a thousand, to whom it is 
given to think out some thought which others 
have not understood; to live out some truth 
which others have not grasped; to find out 
some power which others have not known ; to 
hold out some light which others have not per- 
ceived, and so to make the meaning of life 
clearer and the way of life brighter for some 
of the nine hundred and ninety-nine, — this is 
the highest of all callings. 

" An interpreter, one among a thousand." I 
wish to-day to say four things about the inter- 
preter. First, he is one of God's instruments. 
Second, he is always needed in the world. 
Third, he must be trained. Fourth, he must 
be called. 

The interpreter is one of God's instruments. 
God teaches the many through the few. He 
takes one among a thousand, whispers a truth 
in his ear, and sets him to tell it to the nine 



THE INTERPRETER. 



341 



hundred and ninety-nine. The highest, grand- 
est knowledge the world has to-day has come 
to it through interpreters ; the thousand did 
not find it out for themselves. God whispered 
His great thought to the one, and the one ex- 
plained it to the many. If you look into the 
history of the higher forms of human know- 
ledge you will find that the knowledge which 
to-day is the property of all intelligent people 
came through the interpreters, the few among 
the thousands who, in one department and an- 
other, caught the meaning of some hitherto 
undiscovered truth and told that meaning forth 
to men. 

Let me illustrate this from the fields of sci- 
ence and art. Darwin was an interpreter, one 
among a thousand ; it was given to him to see 
the meaning of that struggle for existence, for- 
ever going on in the animal kingdom, through 
which the evolution of species proceeds through 
a long series of upward or downward steps. And 
the truth that was whispered in his ear, by Him 
Who is 'the Source of all wisdom, he inter- 
preted to thousands upon thousands of eager 
minds. Edison is an interpreter, one among a 
thousand. It was given to him to see a new 
w 7 orld of possibility in the applications to hu- 
man enterprises of that mysterious element of 



342 



THE INTERPRETER. 



electricity. What he saw, what was whispered 
in his ear, he has explained to his fellow-men. 
Beethoven was an interpreter, one among a 
thousand. He was a creative musician. God 
whispered in his ear, deaf as it was to earthly 
sound, new possibilities of musical expression, 
and his writings became, to countless human 
minds, interpretations of emotions and aspira- 
tions previously unexpressed. Wordsworth was 
an interpreter, one among a thousand. Until 
his time, few people had thought much about 
the beauties of nature as expressions of the 
glorious life and love of God. But God whis- 
pered in Wordsworth's ear that new and higher 
view of the meaning of nature, its trees and 
floAvers, its lakes, its mountains, its "trailing 
clouds," and the thought that was given him 
he interpreted to his fellow-men ; and the influ- 
ence of his interpretation we all feel to some 
extent ; for that admiration and love of nature 
which is so strong in us is to be traced back to 
the influences that were set at work in the Eng- 
lish-speaking world when Wordsworth's poems 
unfolded the long-unappreciated beauties of the 
earth. 

But when we turn from these great in- 
terpreters of science and art to those still 
greater who have interpreted to mankind the 



THE INTERPRETER. 



343 



very Nature of God, we find how true it is that 
God chooses to teach the many through the 
few. The apostle Paul was an interpreter, one 
among a thousand ; an interpreter of the Per- 
son and work of Christ. God whispered in his 
soul the real essence of the truth of the gos- 
pel, which is Jesus Christ and Him crucified, — 
the mystery which had been hid from ages and 
generations, the power of Christ's Blood to take 
away sin ; and Paul interpreted the gospel in 
that series of letters which for almost nineteen 
hundred years have been the guidebook of 
men upon this subject. The apostle John was 
an interpreter, one among a thousand, an in- 
terpreter of the love of God. Christ gave him 
such a glorious training by choosing him to be 
His Own dearest friend, by loving him as only 
one great soul can love another ; and the mes- 
sage was whispered in the very depths of the 
soul of John, " God is love," and he through 
his epistle and gospel is interpreting that truth 
to-day to thousands upon thousands of souls, 
for whom it is putting a new meaning into 
life, and a new motive also. But I must go 
one step higher yet ; I must remind you that 
Christ is an Interpreter, the Interpreter to our 
understandings of the Nature and Character of 
the invisible God. John wrote of Him these 



344 



THE INTERPRETER. 



wondrous words : " No man hath seen God at 
any time : the Only Begotten Son, which is in 
the bosom of the Father, He hath declared 
Him." The Greek word for " declared " might 
well be translated " interpreted." Christ by 
taking upon Him our nature, and by manifest- 
ing Himself before men, interpreted to us the 
Nature and Character of the unseen Father, so 
that He says, " He that hath seen Me hath seen 
the Father." 

Now, my younger brothers, I have carried 
you up to the highest illustration of the truth 
that the interpreter is one of God's instru- 
ments, and that so God has ever taught the 
'many through the few. I will only say fur- 
ther on this point that it is true to-day as ever 
it was. To-day we see the interpreter, the one 
among* a thousand. We see him wherever 
any human soul, having more of God's light 
upon it and more of life's meaning revealed to 
it than those around it have, is thinking out 
some thought which others have not under- 
stood, is living out some truth which others 
have not grasped, is finding out some power 
which others have not known, is holding out 
some light which others have not perceived, 
and so is making the meaning of life clearer 
and the way of life brighter for some of the 
nine hundred and ninety-nine. 



THE INTERPRETER. 



345 



The interpreter is always needed in the 
world. Not infrequently it happens in the 
world of labor that men are thrown out of em- 
ployment through changes in the way of doing 
things : when the steam-power loom was in- 
vented, it threw the workers of the hand-loom 
out of business ; when the railway mail service 
was invented, it threw the old mounted mail- 
carriers out of business. But the interpreter 
is always needed in the world. He into whose 
ear God has whispered the deeper, grander 
meaning of life ; he who is able to show in his 
own person a wiser, loftier, usefuller way of 
living, — is always needed ; there is always a 
place for him, there is always a work for him, 
for he is an interpreter, one among a thousand. 
Yes, younger brother, if God shall whisper in 
your ear that which shall make you in any 
sense an interpreter, if He shall fill you with 
any thought that others have not understood, 
you will realize, when an experience of the 
world has become yours, when a knowledge of 
its sin, its selfishness, its unbelief has dawned 
upon you, you will realize that amidst the myri- 
ads of men and women and children that crowd 
the cities and spread over the country, that 
surge by you in the streets, that throng you 
in the railway trains, that buy and sell, and 



346 



THE INTERPRETER. 



laugh and weep, that stand and fall, that sing 
and suffer, nine hundred and ninety-nine out 
of the thousand do not seem to know what the 
true meaning of life is. Their eyes are set on 
other things than the glory of the service of 
God. Their ears are filled with other sounds 
than the whispers of the Voice of God. Their 
hands are oftener closed with grasping than 
opened for helping. And what they need is an 
interpreter, one among a thousand, who has 
seen with the eyes of faith a grander way of 
living, who has heard with the ears of love 
the sound of greater music ; they need an in- 
terpreter to tell them the meaning of life. 
But this is not all. You will find not only 
how few know the meaning of life, you will 
find how few know how to live. The nine 
hundred and ninety-nine do not know how to 
take care of their bodies, how to take care of 
their minds, how to take care of their spirits. 
The reason they do not realize the meaning of 
life, and the glory of the service of God, is be- 
cause they have let themselves in some way go 
to waste. They have wasted themselves physi- 
cally, by breaking laws of nature and permit- 
ting unchecked indulgences ; or they have 
wasted themselves mentally, by refusing the 
discipline of the mind and surrendering their 



THE INTERPRETER. 



347 



intellects to weak and trivial influences ; or 
they have wasted themselves spiritually, by re- 
sisting the Spirit of God and loving darkness 
rather than light. And what they need is an 
interpreter, — some one in whose ear God has 
whispered the sanctity of the body, and the 
holy care of it ; the dignity of the mind and 
the broader culture of it ; the glory of the 
human spirit, and its fellowship with the Spirit 
of God. Yes, the interpreter will never be 
thrown out of business. The ways of doing 
things may change ; the laws of trade may 
change ; the canons of literature may change ; 
the modus operandi of science may change, — 
but a place for him always remains, a need for 
him always exists : as long as the generations 
of men are born, he is needed in whose ear 
God has whispered the true meaning of life 
and the true way of life, that he may inter- 
pret these to the nine hundred and ninety- 
nine. 

The interpreter must be trained. He is 
a specialist ; he is one among a thousand. 
His calling is to show to some fellow-being, 
perhaps to many, new light in the science of 
living. This he cannot do unless, like every 
specialist, he knows more in his department 
than the average know. Like every special- 



348 



THE INTERPRETER. 



ist, then, he must be trained. The question 
then, is, What is the training of an interpre- 
ter ? In answering this question let us bear in 
mind what this interpreter is to do ; bearing 
this in mind, it is easy to say what his training 
is to be. Now what is he to do ? He is to be 
one whose life, in its spirit and in its method, 
is to be the means of showing other people 
what the meaning of life is, and what the best 
way to live is. Consequently the training of 
this interpreter must be, I should say, these 
three things : to know himself, to know the 
meaning of life, and to walk with God. 

To know himself, — this is part of the train- 
ing of an interpreter. He who does not un- 
derstand himself is not likely to be one through 
whose influence others learn to understand 
themselves. The interpreter of life is a close 
student of his own life ; he studies the forces 
that are at work in himself ; he studies himself 
as if he were some one else ; he acknowledges 
that his own being is a great mystery of con- 
trary forces ; but he says, with God's help, " 1 
propose to understand this mystery, to see the 
relation of these contrary forces which are in 
me, to find the clue which will bring order out 
of this confusion, and peace out of this great 
unrest." 



THE INTERPRETER. 



349 



To know the meaning* of life, — this is part 
of the training of an interpreter. What is the 
meaning of life ? The meaning of life is the 
service of God, in thought, in word, and in 
deed. How can the interpreter interpret the 
meaning of life to others unless he is perfectly 
sure of what the meaning of life is? This, 
then, is part of his training : to realize the ser- 
vice of God in all thoughts, in all words, in all 
deeds ; to be constantly under the influence of 
the idea that life means the service of God ; to 
accustom himself to the idea until he takes it 
into account continually in making all his deci- 
sions, in conducting all his operations, in using 
and caring for his body, his mind, and his spirit, 
from day to day. 

To walk with God, — this is part of the train- 
ing of an interpreter. He is to make God real 
to others as the object of service in thought, 
in word, and in deed. How can he make God 
real to others unless God is real to himself? 
And how can God be real to himself unless he 
walks with God in his own daily life ; unless 
he keeps up a constant, earnest, truthful fellow- 
ship with God ? Unless he walks with God in 
his own secret life, he cannot be an interpreter 
of God and of life. He will become only one 
of the nine hundred and ninety-nine who do 



350 



THE INTERPRETER. 



not walk with God, and who are not interpre- 
ters ; and some one else God will choose for an 
interpreter, whispering in his ear. 

Yes, the interpreter must be trained ; while 
he is still young, while he has still time, and 
before the evil days come when manhood's 
heart is hardened, he must be trained to know 
himself, to know the meaning of life, to walk 
with God. 

The interpreter must be called. Perhaps 
you think I have got things in the wrong or- 
der ; that I should have put the calling before 
the training. I think not. If we had to be 
sure of our calling before we went into train- 
ing, not many would go into training. But we 
are sure that we cannot be interpreters unless 
we are trained to know ourselves, to know the 
meaning of life, to walk with God. Therefore 
we give ourselves to this glorious training, and 
we leave the calling with God, trusting Him 
to call us whither He will, and to make us in- 
terpreters of life whensoever He will, and to 
whomsoever He will. And I think the great- 
est thing about this calling to be an interpreter 
is, one may have it unconsciously. I know that 
some of those who have interpreted to me the 
meaning of life, and the nobler ways of living, 
were unconscious of their call. They knew 



THE INTERPRETER. 



351 



not that they were God's interpreters. They 
only thought of their training. With lowly, 
loving, and obedient hearts they were seeking 
to know themselves, to know the meaning of 
life and truthfully to walk with God ; but the 
calling was on them, though they knew it not, 
and by living they revealed to others the way 
to live. 

I look before me upon this group of boyish 
faces ; I follow you forth into the years that 
widen before you. I ask myself with deepest 
curiosity, Who among them will be interpre- 
ters? As I ask, there rise before my mental 
vision three pictures from the olden time, which 
tell me what forms of interpretation may be in 
store for some of you, — the calling of one 
and another. I see the palace of Pharaoh in 
the kingdom of Egypt. I see fear and distress 
written on the countenance of the king. A 
dream has burned itself upon his imagination^ 
the import of which he cannot grasp, and none 
of the magicians in his court can tell him what 
it means. I see the free-hearted, white-souled 
Joseph summoned before the throne, and the 
royal dreamer pleading with him : " I have 
dreamed a dream, and there is none that can 
interpret it, and I have heard say of thee that 
thou canst understand a dream to interpret it." 



352 



THE INTERPRETER. 



I hear the modest answer of the young inter- 
preter : " It is not in me ; God shall give Pha- 
raoh an answer of peace." 1 Younger brothers, 
shall it be the calling of some of you to go forth, 
and like Joseph, by God's help, interpret to men 
their own thoughts ? Souls to-day are dream- 
ing dreams whose import they do not under- 
stand ; thinking confusedly, catching glimpses 
of truth amidst forests of error. Shall one of 
you help others to read the meaning of their 
thoughts, to understand the message of God's 
Spirit in their own hearts ? 

I see another picture. It also is the picture 
of a palace, — a hall filled with revelry, — the 
banquet of the dissolute Belshazzar. He sits, a 
spectacle of despair, his knees smiting together 
with fear, his eyes riveted on the handwriting 
that has suddenly appeared upon the wall. To 
tell him its meaning his own astrologers are 
powerless. He turns to the fearless youth of 
Daniel and cries : " I have heard of thee, that 
thou canst make interpretations and dissolve 
doubts ; now, if thou canst read the writings, 
and make known to me the interpretation there- 
of, thou shalt be clothed with scarlet and have 
a chain of gold about thy neck, and shalt be the 
third ruler in the kingdom." 2 And Daniel, 

1 Gen. xli. 1-43. 2 Dan. v. 1-30. 



THE INTERPRETER. 



353 



girded with the courage of God, has strength to 
tell that man of sin the meaning of the hand- 
writing on the wall ; that he has destroyed him- 
self , that he has been weighed in the balance and 
found wanting, that he must reap what he has 
sown. Younger brothers, shall it be the calling 
of some of you to go forth, and like Daniel, speak 
plainly to men about their sinful lives, inter- 
pret to men who are living in sin the warnings 
of God, tell them that the life of indulgence 
shall be weighed and found wanting, snatch 
men from their self -destroying ways, as brands 
from the burning ? 

I see one other picture ; not a palace, but 
a country roadside ; not the glare of mid- 
night lamps, but the sweet radiance of a 
Lord's Day afternoon : three men are there ; 
two with burning hearts are listening; One, 
with the light of the Resurrection in His 
Divine Face, is preaching and interpreting the 
Holy Scriptures ; and underneath my picture of 
the Emmaus road it is written, " And begin- 
ning at Moses and all the prophets, He ex- 
pounded unto them in all the Scriptures the 
things concerning Himself/' 1 Younger bro- 
thers, shall it be the calling of some of you, 
even like Him Who rose from the dead, to go 

i St. Lk. xxiv. 13-32. 



354 



THE INTERPRETER. 



forth and walk by the side of your fellow-men, 
and open their understandings that they may 
understand the Scriptures, that they may grasp 
the things that concern Christ? 

To the Christian boys in this school I would 
say this closing word. In this world, which 
knows so little of Jesus Christ, each Christian 
is called to be an interpreter of Christ, — one 
among a thousand. In the Gospel of Matthew 
it is written of our Lord, "They shall call 
His Name Emmanuel, which being interpreted 
is, God with us." 1 The Name of Emmanuel is 
borne by those of you who have confessed Christ. 
That Name, being interpreted, means " God with 
us." It is for each of you to interpret that 
Name to men ; to show, by the truth, by the 
pureness, by the strength of your lives, that to 
be a Christian means, being interpreted, " God 
with us." Amen. 

1 St. Matt. i. 23. 



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